Oil Rig & Offshore Accident Claims
Find out where you stand, free of charge
If you were hurt on an installation, a support vessel or a helideck, you may be able to claim. We handle oil rig accident claims on a No Win No Fee basis, whether you are staff, agency or a day rate contractor.
Regulated solicitors
Years' experience
No Win No Fee
Can you make an oil rig or offshore accident claim?
If someone else’s failure to keep the installation safe caused your injury, you may be able to claim. That failure does not have to be dramatic. Grating left oily, a load swung without a banksman, a permit signed off on a shift that had run too long: these are the ordinary ways offshore injuries happen, and they are the ordinary basis of a claim.
Employment status is the thing people get wrong. Whoever operates the installation owes a duty to everyone on board, not only to the people on its own payroll. Agency crew, day rate contractors, catering staff and third party service technicians are all covered. If your payslip comes from a company that has never set foot on the rig, that changes who we pursue. It does not change whether you have a claim.
Most offshore injuries are not disasters
Offshore safety in the UK sector has come a long way since Piper Alpha, and the figures show it. There were no offshore fatalities reported to the Health and Safety Executive in 2024, and two in the previous ten years. Fractures accounted for 34% of reported injuries and sprains and strains for a further 31%.
That is worth saying plainly, because a lot of legal websites describe offshore work as though every incident were an explosion. Most are not. Most are a fall on a wet walkway or a back injury lifting something awkward in a confined space, and they end careers just as effectively.
It also does not mean operators get everything right. HSE raised 616 non compliance issues with duty holders in 2024, most commonly about maintenance, followed by control of work. Those two categories are precisely where injury claims come from.
of offshore injuries reported in 2024 were slips, trips or falls on the same level
It was the single most common kind of accident offshore that year, ahead of injuries while handling, lifting or carrying, at 26%. Of the 107 injuries reported, 12 were specified injuries and 95 kept someone off work for more than seven days.
Source: HSE, Offshore Statistics and Regulatory Activity Report 2024, published September 2025
How offshore accidents happen
If what happened to you is not on this list, it does not mean there is no claim. Tell us the circumstances and we will look at it.
Deck and walkway falls
Oil or mud left on grating, a missing section of handrail, poor lighting on a night shift, or an unmarked trip hazard left where people route between modules.
Lifting and crane operations
Being struck by a swinging load, a lift run without a banksman or in weather that should have stopped it, tugger winch failures, or defective slings and shackles that were never taken out of service.
Drill floor and machinery
Crush and degloving injuries from tongs, spinning chains and pipe handling equipment, and injuries caused by guarding that was removed for maintenance and never put back.
Chemical and gas exposure
Burns or breathing damage from drilling muds, solvents, tank cleaning chemicals and hydrogen sulphide, where detection, ventilation or breathing apparatus was inadequate.
Working at height
Falls from the derrick, monkey board or scaffold during shutdowns and maintenance, dropped objects striking people below, and harness or anchor points that were never properly inspected.
Accommodation and galley
Injuries in the living quarters or on a flotel, including galley burns and cuts, falls on stairs and gangways, and illness traced to food handling or water systems on board.
Where you were standing changes the rules
Offshore is not one legal space. Three different regimes cover a single trip out, and which one applies to your accident depends on where you physically were when it happened. The regulator splits it the same way: HSE covers the installation, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency covers marine activity, and the Civil Aviation Authority covers the flight.
For most people this makes no practical difference, because most offshore accidents happen on the installation and the usual three year limit applies. It matters when the accident happened in transit or on the water, where separate rules can apply and the time limit is not always the one you would expect.
Two other questions come up constantly. Scottish waters do not automatically mean a Scottish claim, and international waters do not automatically mean no claim: where the case is brought turns on your employer, your contract and the flag of the installation or vessel. Both are worth an early conversation rather than a guess.
Fixed platforms, jack ups, FPSOs and flotels. UK health and safety law reaches offshore installations, and the ordinary three year limit normally applies.
Support and standby vessels, crew transfers and anything in transit. Maritime rules can apply instead, and some carry shorter deadlines than three years.
Injuries during the flight itself fall under aviation liability rules. An injury on the helideck is a different matter, because the helideck is part of the installation.
Because the deadline can differ, do not assume you have three years without checking. Tell us where you were and we will confirm the position.
What offshore accident compensation includes
Offshore injury claims are valued on their own facts and outcomes vary, so nobody can tell you what yours is worth from a web page. What we can set out is what a claim is built from.
Compensation for the pain, the surgery and rehabilitation, and the things you can no longer do. Courts assess this using the Judicial College Guidelines alongside medical evidence about your specific injury and recovery.
Psychological injury counts here too. Being present at a serious incident, or the loss of a career you built your life around, can be part of the claim in its own right.
Wages already lost, treatment and rehabilitation costs, travel, care given by family, and adaptations you have needed. These are evidenced with documents rather than estimated
In offshore claims this is usually the larger part of the case, because offshore earnings are high and the loss runs forward for as long as the injury affects your ability to work.
This is the part of an offshore claim that is most often undervalued, and it is specific to your industry. You cannot work offshore in the UK sector without a valid OEUK medical, still widely called the OGUK medical after the industry body’s change of name. If an injury means you cannot renew that certificate, or cannot pass survival training, the job goes even if you have otherwise recovered well.
A claim valued only on the weeks you spent off work misses that entirely. The right question is what you would have earned over the rest of an offshore career, set against what you can realistically earn onshore instead. Getting that right takes proper medical and employment evidence, which is why we build it early rather than at the end.
Not sure what your claim might involve? A free conversation will tell you more than any figure on a page.
Evidence in an offshore claim
Here is something in your favour. An offshore installation generates more paperwork in a day than most workplaces do in a month, and almost all of it can be obtained through the claim. You are not expected to have kept any of it.
Did not report it at the time? Common, and not fatal to a claim. People carry on to the end of a hitch and see someone once they are home. Tell us what happened and we will work with what exists.
No Win No Fee offshore accident claims
There is nothing to pay to start, and nothing to pay as the claim runs. If it does not succeed, you do not pay us for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement.
If it does succeed, a success fee comes out of your compensation. It is capped by law at 25% of certain parts of the award, and it is agreed with you in writing before anything begins. Costs like medical reports and court fees, and the insurance that covers you if the claim fails, are explained to you at the same time rather than appearing later.
We would rather you asked us about the money side at the first call than wondered about it for six months. It is a fair question and there is a straight answer to i
Factory injury claims: your
questions answered
The questions we are asked most, answered plainly.
Can I make an oil rig accident claim if I am agency or a contractor?
Yes. Whoever operates the installation owes a duty of care to everyone on board, not only to its own employees, and your agency or your own limited company may owe you duties too. Your status affects who the claim is brought against, which is our problem to work out, rather than whether you have one at all. Day rate contractors sometimes assume they have signed their rights away; that is usually not the case, and it is worth having someone read the contract properly.
How long do I have to make a claim?
For an injury on an offshore installation the limit is normally three years from the accident, or from when you realised the injury was linked to your work. Offshore is not that simple in every case. Where the accident happened on a vessel, during a transfer or in the air, different rules can apply and some of them carry shorter deadlines. Courts also have a limited discretion to allow claims outside the usual period. If you are anywhere near a deadline, or you are not sure which one applies, ask rather than assume.
Will I be marked NRB or lose work if I claim?
This is the question we are asked most, and it warrants a straight answer rather than a comfortable one. The useful fact is that employers must carry liability insurance by law, so a claim is dealt with by insurers and their solicitors. It is not money out of the OIM’s budget and it is not a personal dispute with the people you work alongside. What your employer or agency can lawfully do in response depends on your contract, your status and how long you have been there, and that is a separate question from the injury claim. If you are worried about it, raise it on the first call. We handle enquiries confidentially and we will tell you honestly what we can and cannot deal with.
My accident happened outside UK waters. Can I still claim here?
Often, yes. Where a claim can be brought depends on things like where your employer is based, what your contract says about governing law, and the flag of the installation or vessel, rather than simply on the coordinates where it happened. Being in Scottish waters does not automatically make it a Scottish claim either, and that distinction can matter because procedure differs between England and Wales and Scotland. Send us your contract and tell us where you were, and we will confirm the position before you commit to anything.
What if the weather caused the accident?
Nobody is responsible for the sea state. Someone is responsible for deciding what work goes ahead in it. The question in these claims is usually whether the operation should have been stopped, deferred or done differently given the forecast and the conditions on deck, and whether the limits set out in the procedures were actually applied. That is answerable from the paperwork, which is why weather is a weaker defence than insurers sometimes suggest at the outset.
Do I have to come to Birmingham, or go to court?
No to the first, and almost certainly no to the second. We are based in Birmingham and act for people all over the UK; the claim runs by phone, email and video, and medical appointments are arranged near you rather than near us. Most claims settle without anyone attending a hearing. We can also work around your rotation, so calls do not have to land in the middle of a hitch.
Find out if you have a claim
Tell us roughly what happened and where you were. You do not need dates, documents, a report number or the name of an insurer. We will look at it and come back to you with a straight answer, including if the answer is that there is no claim worth running.
- Free, confidential and without obligation
- No Win No Fee available
- SRA-regulated solicitors
- We work around your rotation
Check if you can make a claim
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Other claims we handle
Not sure whether it is worth pursuing?
Most people who ring us about oil rig accident claims have already talked themselves out of it, usually because they were agency, because they carried on working, or because it happened outside UK waters. None of those things end a claim on their own. Tell us what happened and we will give you an honest answer, free and with no obligation.
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