Foot Injury Compensation Claims
Check if you can claim compensation
A load dropped on your foot, a fall on a floor that should have been safe, a machine that should have been guarded. If someone else was responsible, you may be able to claim. We handle foot injury compensation claims on a No Win No Fee basis, from a minor foot injury that never settled to a crushed foot or the loss of a toe.
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Can you make a foot injury compensation claim?
Most people judge a foot injury by whether anything broke. If the X-ray was clear they assume there is nothing to talk about, and they carry on limping. That is the wrong test. A crush that breaks no bones can leave nerve damage and pain that outlasts a clean fracture by years.
The question a claim actually asks is different: was somebody responsible for keeping your feet safe, and did they fall short? An employer who never issued protective footwear, a site that left a floor slippery or a hole uncovered, a machine without a guard, a driver who did not look. If one of those describes what happened to you, the size of the fracture is not what decides whether you have a claim.
People search this as compensation for foot injury, as compensation foot injury, as a broken foot claim, as an injured foot claim, as a toe injury claim, and as foot injury claims compensation. They are all the same claim. What changes the case is who was responsible for the place or the task, not what the injury is called.
Twenty-six bones, and nothing between them
and the floor
The foot carries your whole weight on a structure of small bones, and at work it spends the day next to pallets, trolleys, forklifts, loads being lowered and machinery at ground level. Everything that gets dropped ends up at foot height.
Protective footwear exists precisely because of that, and it is engineered to a published standard. Under EN ISO 20345:2022, the safety footwear standard in force since 2023, a toecap has to withstand a 200 joule impact and a static compression of 15 kilonewtons. Two hundred joules is roughly a 20 kg weight dropped from one metre. Fifteen kilonewtons is roughly one and a half tonnes pressing down.
When someone is hurt because they had no boots, the wrong boots, or boots they were told to buy themselves, the failure is easy to describe and hard to defend.
of static compression a safety toecap must withstand, on top of a 200 joule impact. Roughly one and a half tonnes of load on the front of your foot.
Foot injuries we handle claims for
Crushed foot injuries
A pallet, a cage, a load being lowered, a forklift wheel. Crushing damages soft tissue, nerves and blood supply as much as bone, which is why a normal X-ray does not mean a minor injury. Crushed foot injury compensation is valued on what the foot can still do, not on what the imaging showed that day.
Broken foot and fractures
Metatarsals, the heel bone, the small bones of the midfoot. A broken foot claim turns on the same duties as any other, and heel fractures from a fall from height are the ones that most often leave lasting stiffness. Fractured heel compensation is frequently larger than people expect, because the heel takes your weight with every step.
Toe injuries and amputation
A toe injury compensation claim covers a crushed or broken toe, a degloving injury, a nail bed destroyed, or the loss of a toe altogether. Losing toes or part of the foot changes balance, gait and what work you can do, and toe amputation compensation is built slowly, because prosthetics, adaptations and future care all have to be costed.
Minor foot injuries that did not settle
Minor foot injury compensation is the category people write off themselves. Bruising, a sprain or a soft tissue injury that still aches at six months is not minor in the sense that matters here, because a claim is valued on the effect it has had rather than on the label given in A and E.
Slips, trips and falls
Wet floors with no sign, worn stair nosings, trailing cables, a raised paving slab or an uncovered hole. Slips and trips on the same level are the most commonly reported kind of workplace injury in HSE’s figures, at 30 per cent of employer-reported non-fatal injuries to employees in 2024/25.
Machinery and cutting injuries
Unguarded blades, ground-level moving parts, chemical spills and burns. Where a guard was missing, disabled or never fitted, the paperwork behind that decision usually exists somewhere, and it is among the first things we ask for. A guard taken off to keep a line moving is rarely taken off quietly.
Nerve damage and lasting pain
Burning, numbness or pain far beyond what the original injury would suggest, sometimes long after everything has healed on paper. It is recognised, it is assessed by specialists, and it is compensable. It is also the reason a foot claim should not be settled the week the cast comes off.
Why a broken toe never reaches the accident book
From a bruise that never quite settled to injuries that change how you walk for good.
Under regulation 4 of RIDDOR 2013 an employer has to report a bone fracture to the enforcing authority, but the duty leaves out fractures to fingers, thumbs and toes. HSE puts it in one line: all fractures are reportable, except those to fingers, thumbs and toes. So a broken foot is reportable and a broken toe is not. Amputation works the other way round entirely, because losing an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe is reportable in every case, toes included.
That single distinction explains a great deal of what people are told at work. If nobody filed a report when your toe was broken, the employer was not necessarily hiding anything, because there was no duty to file one. It also means the absence of a report proves nothing about your claim. Compensation for a toe injury is decided by the same duties as any other injury, and a toe injury claim does not need a RIDDOR report behind it to succeed.
What the employer still has to do, whatever RIDDOR says, is write the accident down. An employer with ten or more people normally employed on the same premises must keep a means of recording accidents and preserve each entry for at least three years, under regulation 25(3) of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979. So there should be a record even where no report was ever due.
Evidence in a foot injury claim
Feet are valued on what you can still do on them. Standing a shift, driving, climbing a ladder, walking the dog, wearing ordinary shoes. Two people with the same scan can end up in very different places, and it is the difference that gets assessed rather than the diagnosis.
A foot injury compensation claim has two halves. General damages for the injury, valued on the medical evidence once your recovery is clear. Special damages for what the injury cost you, proved with documents. Where a job involves being on your feet all day, the second half is usually the larger one, and it is the part people leave out of their own estimate.
How much compensation for a foot injury, and how much can I claim for a foot injury, both have the same honest answer. It depends on what you are left with and on what you do for a living, and neither is known until an expert has examined you. We will not quote you a figure before that, and we would be cautious of anyone who does.
The one threshold that is fixed
A personal injury claim that is not a road traffic claim belongs on the small claims track only where two things are both true: the whole claim is worth no more than £10,000 under rule 26.9(1)(a)(i) of the Civil Procedure Rules, and the injury element on its own is no more than £1,500 under rule 26.9(1)(a)(ii)(cc). A bruised foot that settles in a month may sit below both. A crushed foot or a fracture generally will not, and once the months off work are counted the first limb is often the one that decides it.
The basic costs of running the claim are recovered from the other side rather than from you. The success fee is a separate thing, it does come out of your compensation.
The one threshold that is fixed
Foot injury claim amounts depend on the medical report. The 18th edition raised the figures in the 17th by about eight per cent, so a band with no edition against it can be a full uplift out of date. Foot injury compensation payouts UK wide are better answered by telling you which route your claim runs on and what your losses look like, which we will do on the first call.
What a claim can provide for
One piece of evidence in these claims is unusual, because it is a physical object rather than a document, and it often goes in the bin within a week.
Already thrown the boot away? Most people have, and it does not end a claim. Say so early, because it shifts the weight onto the issue records and the photographs, and those are worth chasing sooner rather than later.
No Win No Fee foot injury claims
Starting costs nothing, and if the claim does not succeed you will not pay for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement. If it succeeds, a success fee agreed with you at the outset comes out of the compensation.
Where it happened decides who pays. An accident at work is met by the employer’s insurers, a fall in a shop, car park or on a pavement by the occupier’s or the council’s, and a road accident by the other driver’s. Employers’ liability insurance is compulsory under section 1 of the Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969, which is why claiming against your own employer does not take money out of the business.
You will see the full terms in writing before anything is signed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know before starting your claim.
I was never given safety boots. Is that enough on its own?
It is a strong start rather than the whole answer. The questions are whether a risk assessment should have identified the need for protective footwear, whether suitable footwear was provided free of charge, and whether having it would have prevented or reduced your injury. Being given the wrong type, or a worn out pair nobody replaced, can be as much of a failure as being given nothing.
Can I claim if I am agency, casual or on a short contract?
Usually, and the position improved on 6 April 2022. The PPE regulations were extended beyond employees to cover casual and contract workers, so an employer cannot assume the duty to provide protective footwear stops at people with a permanent contract. Separately, whoever controls a site owes duties to the people working on it whatever their contract says. If you were told the rules did not apply to you because you were agency, that is worth checking rather than accepting.
How do I claim for a broken foot at work?
A broken foot at work claim is brought against your employer’s insurer, and it starts with one call rather than with paperwork. Broken foot at work compensation covers the fracture itself and everything it cost you, and if you are wondering how to sue for a broken foot injury at work, the honest answer is that most of these never reach a courtroom. How much compensation will I get for a broken foot depends on which bone went, whether it healed straight, and what you do on your feet all day. Compensation for broken foot at work claims also covers the wages lost while you could not stand. Nobody can give you a broken foot compensation amount before an expert has examined the foot.
Nothing was broken. Can I still claim?
Yes. A clear X-ray rules out a fracture, not an injury. Crushing damages soft tissue, ligaments, nerves and blood supply, and those injuries can leave more lasting trouble than a break that heals cleanly. What a claim is valued on is the effect on you, so if your foot still hurts, still swells or still stops you doing things months later, that counts whatever the X-ray said on the day.
Can I claim for a broken toe?
Yes. The confusion comes from RIDDOR, which leaves fingers, thumbs and toes out of the fractures an employer has to report. That is a reporting rule, not a compensation rule, and it has no bearing on whether you can claim. How to sue for toe injury compensation is the same process as any other foot claim, and toe injury claims are brought on exactly the same duties.
Will claiming against my employer cost me my job?
Two things are worth separating. Your injury claim is dealt with by your employer’s insurers rather than out of the business, because employers’ liability insurance is compulsory. That is why claiming does not cost your employer money directly. What happens to your job is a separate question and it turns on how long you have worked there. Ordinary unfair dismissal protection currently needs two years of continuous service, reducing to six months on 1 January 2027. Below that threshold the protection is narrower, although dismissal for raising a genuine health and safety concern is treated differently and carries no qualifying period at all. If you are worried about your position as well as your foot, say so on the first call.
My foot still hurts long after it healed. Is that part of a claim?
It is, and it is common enough in foot injuries to be worth raising early. Pain that persists after the tissue has healed, or that seems out of proportion to the original injury, is a recognised outcome and is assessed by specialists in the same way as any other consequence. It also affects when a claim should be settled, because agreeing a figure before the picture is clear is how people end up short.
I broke my foot in a car accident. Is that different?
The injury is valued the same way, but the route is different. A broken foot car accident settlement runs through the road traffic process against the other driver’s insurer, and where the injury element is worth up to £5,000 it usually goes through the Official Injury Claim portal. That £5,000 figure drops to £1,000 if you were a pedestrian, a cyclist, a motorcyclist or a horse rider at the time. A foot fracture is often worth more than either, which changes the route and the costs position. Tell us how it happened and we will tell you which applies.
How long do I have to make a claim?
Usually three years, running from the day of the accident or from when you first realised your injury was linked to someone else’s failure, whichever is later. Children have until their twenty-first birthday, and there is no time limit while someone lacks the mental capacity to bring a claim. Courts can allow claims outside the period too. The practical point is separate from the legal one: CCTV and site photographs disappear long before three years are up.
Check if you can make a claim
Tell us where you were and what happened to your foot. You do not need a diagnosis, a scan result or any paperwork to get started, and there is no obligation to go ahead.
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Not sure if you have a claim?
People walk on a damaged foot for months before they ask anyone, usually because nothing showed up on the X-ray. Tell us what happened and how it has been since, and we will give you an honest answer, free and with no obligation.
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