Cold Injury Claims
Non-freezing cold injury (NFCI), frostbite and cold-related nerve damage
A cold injury is easy to dismiss at the time and hard to live with afterwards. Many people only understand what happened to them years later, when their feet still hurt every winter. We act for service personnel and for civilian workers on a No Win No Fee basis, and we will give you an honest view of whether there is a claim.
Regulated solicitors
Years' experience
No Win No Fee
What is a non-freezing cold injury (NFCI)?
A non-freezing cold injury is nerve and blood vessel damage caused by hands or feet being cold and wet for a long time. It does not need freezing conditions, which is the part most people find surprising. Doctors have also called it trench foot or immersion foot, and it is the injury behind most cold claims we see.
Non-freezing cold injury
Cold and wet, for long enough, above freezing. The damage is to the nerves and the small blood vessels rather than to the skin, which is why there may be nothing dramatic to look at while it is happening. Wet boots on a long exercise, or a shift spent standing in cold water, are the classic causes.
- Numbness or pins and needles while you are still cold
- Severe burning pain as the limb warms up again
- Feet or hands that stay painfully sensitive to cold long afterwards
- Sweating more than usual, or skin that changes colour
Frostnip and frostbite
A freezing cold injury happens below zero, when ice forms in the tissue itself. It is less common in British workplaces than NFCI, but it does happen in cold stores and blast freezers, and on deployments to sub-zero environments. Unlike NFCI, it kills tissue, and severe cases can reach muscle and bone.
- Skin turning white, waxy or grey
- An area that feels hard or solid to touch
- Blistering or blackening once it is warmed
- In the worst cases, tissue loss requiring surgery
How long does a non-freezing cold injury last?
For some people it settles within months. For others the cold sensitivity never fully goes, and that is the version that changes what work you can do. Long-term symptoms tend to be pain, altered sensation and an intolerance of cold weather rather than anything visible, which is exactly why these injuries get dismissed early and taken seriously late.
Can you make a cold injury claim?
A cold injury claim asks a narrow question: was the exposure that hurt you avoidable, and did the people responsible for you take the steps they were supposed to take. Cold work is lawful. Cold work without protection, breaks or anyone paying attention is a different matter.
There are rules, and they are more specific than most people expect. The Approved Code of Practice supporting the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 says indoor workplaces should normally be at least 16°C, or at least 13°C where much of the work involves rigorous physical effort.
There is an important qualification that is often left out, and you should know it before you assume you have been let down. Those temperatures do not apply where it would be impractical to maintain them, which expressly includes rooms that have to be open to the outside and rooms where food or other products have to be kept cold. If you work in a chiller or a blast freezer, nobody was breaking the law by keeping it cold.
What the Code says instead is the part that matters for a claim. Where heating cannot give reasonable comfort, suitable protective clothing and rest facilities should be provided, and working patterns such as task rotation should be used to limit how long any one person spends in the cold. Those three things are what a cold injury claim actually examines.
Separately, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations require suitable equipment to be provided free of charge, maintained, and explained. Since 6 April 2022 that duty covers casual and agency workers as well as employees, so being on an irregular contract does not put you outside it.
new claims against the Ministry of Defence for non-freezing cold injury in a single year
That was 2023/24. It is lower than the 228 recorded the year before, and it is close to double the 97 recorded in 2019/20. Whichever way you read the trend, cold injury among service personnel is not a rare or historical problem, and the MOD is dealing with it in volume.
Source: Ministry of Defence, common law compensation claims statistics 2023/24, published on gov.uk.
Who tends to be affected
- Armed forces. Exercise and deployment in wet, cold ground. The largest single group.
- Food processing and cold storage. Chillers, blast freezers and long shifts in them.
- Construction and utilities. Outdoor work through winter, often standing in water.
- Agriculture. Wet fields, early starts, little shelter.
- Offshore, fishing and maritime. Cold water combined with wind.
A note on timing, because the live guidance on this is often wrong.
The usual three-year limit does not necessarily run from the day you were cold. It can run from the date you first knew your symptoms were significant and connected to your service or your work, which for a cold injury is frequently years later, when a doctor finally puts a name to it. If you were told at the time to get on with it and only understood recently what had happened, do not assume you are out of time. Ask.
AFCS or a civil claim? They are not the same thing
This is the single most confused point in military cold injury claims, and getting it wrong costs people money. There are two separate routes. They run on different rules, different deadlines, and different questions about fault. You can use both.
| Armed Forces Compensation Scheme | Civil claim against the MOD | |
|---|---|---|
| Do you have to prove anyone was at fault? | No. AFCS is a no-fault scheme, paying compensation irrespective of fault. | Yes. You have to show the MOD was negligent, meaning it failed in its duty of care to you. |
| Which injuries are covered? | Injury or illness caused by service on or after 6 April 2005. | No equivalent cut-off date, though the ordinary limitation rules apply. |
| How long do you have? | Seven years, running from the earliest of the incident, the date service made an existing condition worse, the date you first sought medical advice for an illness, or your discharge. Claims outside that are accepted in defined circumstances. | Usually three years, running from the injury or from the date you knew your condition was significant and linked to service. |
| Who do you deal with? | Veterans UK, directly. You do not need a solicitor to make an AFCS claim. | The MOD's legal team, usually through your solicitor. |
| Can you do both? | Yes. AFCS does not affect your right to bring a civil claim. But you cannot be compensated twice for the same injury, so any AFCS award is taken into account, and each route has to be told about the other. Declare both. | |
Source: Armed Forces Compensation Scheme guidance, gov.uk. The practical consequence worth noticing is the deadline. The AFCS window is longer than the civil one. Someone who assumes three years have passed and that the door has closed may still be inside the seven-year window, and that is worth ten minutes of checking rather than a lifetime of wondering.
How much compensation for a cold injury?
There is no set figure, and anyone quoting you one before a specialist has examined you is guessing. What decides it is not how cold you were. It is what you are left with, and for how long.
General damages
For the injury itself and its effect on your life. With a cold injury that effect is often quieter than an obvious wound and harder to explain: not being able to stand a cold morning, giving up things you did outdoors, pain that arrives every winter and does not care that the original exposure was years ago.
An independent medical expert assesses how severe it is and whether it is likely to be permanent. That report, more than anything else, is what shapes this part of the claim.
Special damages
For what the injury has cost you and will cost you. Cold injury claims often carry heads of loss that other injuries do not, and they are easy to overlook if nobody asks:
- Lost earnings, and future earnings if you have to leave a trade you can no longer do outdoors
- A medical discharge, and what that does to a service career and pension
- Heating your home above what you would otherwise need, because you cannot tolerate the cold
- Heated socks, gloves and thermal clothing bought to manage the condition
- Treatment, travel and any care you have needed
Keep receipts and keep your energy bills. On this particular injury the running costs are a real part of the claim, and they are far easier to prove while you still have the paperwork than to reconstruct two years later.
Evidence that supports a cold injury claim
Cold injuries leave little to photograph, so these claims are built from records rather than pictures. Most of them are held by the people you would be claiming against, which is why a solicitor requests them rather than expecting you to produce them.
Never reported it at the time? That is extremely common with cold injuries, and it is not the end of the claim. People carry on because carrying on is what is expected, and the symptoms only become undeniable later. Tell us honestly what happened and when, including the gaps. It is far better raised by you at the start than by the other side halfway through.
No Win No Fee cold injury claims
A No Win No Fee agreement, properly called a Conditional Fee Agreement, means there is nothing to pay upfront. If the claim does not succeed, you do not pay us for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement.
If it succeeds, a success fee agreed with you in advance comes out of your compensation. There is a legal cap on that fee in personal injury claims, and it is worth understanding properly: the cap is calculated on your damages for the injury itself and your past financial losses, not on the whole settlement, because future losses are left out of the calculation. Your agreement will set out the exact percentage in writing before you sign.
Ask us to walk you through the figures, including what happens to disbursements and whether any insurance is taken out on your behalf, rather than taking a headline percentage on trust. That applies to any firm you speak to.
Cold injury claims
your questions answered
The questions we are asked most, answered plainly.
What are the symptoms of a non-freezing cold injury?
During the exposure, numbness or pins and needles. As the limb warms up, a severe burning pain that can be worse than the cold itself. Afterwards, the symptom that tends to persist is an intolerance of cold: feet or hands that hurt on a cold morning years later, sometimes with sweating, colour changes or altered sensation. There is often nothing much to see, which is one reason these injuries get missed at the time.
How long does a non-freezing cold injury last?
It varies a great deal. Some people recover over months. Others are left permanently sensitive to cold, and that is the version that ends outdoor careers. A specialist opinion is what establishes which category you are in, and it is also why claims are not usually valued early: until someone can say whether your symptoms are settling or permanent, nobody can sensibly assess what the injury has cost you.
Can I claim for a cold injury I got in the armed forces?
You may be able to. The Ministry of Defence owes service personnel a duty of care, and hard training does not remove it. Claims commonly arise where symptoms were reported and nothing was done, where kit was unsuitable for wet cold, or where nobody was taken out of the conditions. Bear in mind there are two separate routes, the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and a civil claim, with different deadlines and different rules about fault. The comparison above sets out how they differ.
I was told to toughen up and carry on. Can I still claim?
Possibly, and that instruction may help rather than hurt. If you raised symptoms such as numbness or white toes and were told to press on, that is a record of the problem being known about. Being expected to endure it is not the same as it being reasonable to expect you to. Try to remember who you told, roughly when, and whether anyone wrote it down.
What is the minimum temperature I can be made to work in?
For indoor workplaces the Approved Code of Practice says the temperature should normally be at least 16°C, or at least 13°C where much of the work involves rigorous physical effort. Those figures are guidance rather than a hard legal limit, and they expressly do not apply where keeping a place that warm would be impractical, such as rooms open to the outside or rooms where food has to be kept cold. In those workplaces the duty shifts to protective clothing, rest facilities and limiting how long you spend in the cold. There is no minimum temperature for outdoor work at all, but the risk still has to be assessed and managed.
My cold injury was years ago. Is it too late to claim?
Not necessarily, and this is worth checking rather than assuming. The three-year civil limit can run from the date you first knew your symptoms were significant and connected to your service or work, which with a cold injury is often much later than the exposure. For service personnel there is also the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, which allows seven years from the earliest of several starting points and accepts some claims outside that. Different deadlines, different routes, and one phone call establishes which apply to you.
Find out where you stand
Tell us what happened and how you have been since. We will explain which route applies to you, what it would involve, and whether it is worth pursuing. If it is not, we will say so.
- Free, confidential and without obligation
- No Win No Fee available
- SRA-regulated solicitors
Check if you can make a claim
Takes less than 60 seconds
Other claims we handle
Find out whether you have a claim
Most people we speak to about cold injuries have spent years assuming that being cold at work was just part of the job, and that nothing could be done about what it left them with. Sometimes that is right. Often it is not. The conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
Related Blogs
