Make a claim

You must have reported the road or pavement defect to us before you submit a claim, if you have not yet done this please report the issue online.

If you have already reported the issue, you will require the reference which is 7 characters beginning with a 4.

Please note: If this reference number is not provided or you provide an incorrect reference number, your claim will not be processed.

If you have suffered property damage, you will be required to provide us with:

• the exact location of incident 
• a full description of the alleged defect with measurements if safe to do so
• the time, date and weather conditions
• direction of travel
• photographs and details of the alleged defect and damages suffered
• evidence of financial loss (invoices and receipts for payment)
• why you believe we are responsible for the damage

If you have suffered an injury, you will be required to provide us with:

• details of the injury you sustained
• your National Insurance Number
• date of birth
• employer details (if employed)
• details of any medical attention sought

The claim form must be completed in its entirety with as much detail as possible and the exact location identified. We cannot consider your claim without these details. The incident will be the subject of a report and subsequently forwarded to the our insurance claim handlers who will write to you direct. A decision will be taken only when all the relevant information has been received and investigated.

Personal information

The personal information you provide will be used by us and insurers for the purposes of insurance administration and claims handling. It might also be shared with other third parties in relation to claims handling and fraud and crime prevention.

We might also need to disclose your personal information to regulatory bodies in connection with compliance with any regulatory rules or codes. These bodies include the Claims and Underwriting Exchange (CUE) run by Insurance Database Ltd (IDSL), and the Motor Insurers Anti-Fraud Register run by the ABI. In dealing with a claim, we might search these and other registers.

Your personal information might also be used for statistical purposes. For any of these purposes, your personal information may be transferred to any country, including those outside the European Economic Area.

We aim to send an acknowledgement email to you within 21 days of receiving your claim. If there is any information missing, we will request this in the acknowledgement email. We will not progress your claim further until all documents / photographs / receipts / location details are received.

Please ensure that you check your junk email folder and add @staffordshire.gov.uk and @gbtpa.com to your email senders list to ensure you receive all correspondence.

Please note that 21 days is only a guideline, and maybe longer during busy periods. When we have received your claim details in full, we will carry out an investigation into the matters surrounding your claim.

Your completed claim will be checked by our in house claims team and once all details are received, our reports will be forwarded to our appointed insurance claims handler who will write to you directly upon their receipt of the claim.

Once your claim is being processed by our appointed insurance claims handler, you should contact them directly to receive updates.

You should expect to receive a decision from our appointed insurance claim handler regarding the liability within 3 months of the insurer’s acknowledgement letter.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the claim and would like to appeal the decision or require further clarification, please contact our appointed insurance claims handler to discuss this.