Brain Injury Compensation Through the CICA Scheme

If you have suffered a brain injury as the result of a violent crime, you may be entitled to brain injury compensation through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

The scheme covers head injury, brain damage, post-concussion syndrome, and the secondary injuries that often follow. The tariff figures are public, but the route to the right award is not.

This page explains how brain injury claims are valued under the CICA Scheme 2012, what the scheme cap allows for, and where most claims under-recover.

In short:

• The CICA brain injury compensation tariff ranges from £1,500 for minor head injury to £250,000 for very serious brain damage.
• A single brain injury claim can reach the £500,000 scheme cap once loss of earnings, special expenses, mental injury, and special expenses are accounted for.
• The combined-effects rule (Note 3 of Annex E) means brain damage claims are valued differently from claims involving multiple separate injuries.
• The application deadline is two years from the date of the incident, or the 20th birthday for child victims, save for exceptional circumstances where a claim could not have been reasonably brought within this time
• Specialist representation makes the largest difference at the medical evidence stage.

Winston Solicitors run a specialist CICA team led by Stacey Flegg, with over 13 years of CICA practice including successful First Tier Tribunal appeals.

Stacey Flegg, Head of CICA at Winston Solicitors. Over 13 years specialising in Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority claims, including complex First Tier Tribunal appeals. Read more about Stacey. (Last reviewed 29 May 2026).

The CICA scheme covers a wide range of head and brain injuries. The scheme groups them under Section 2 of Annex E (the tariff for head and neck injuries), and they include:

• Concussion and minor head injury, where there are short-term effects such as headaches, dizziness, or impaired balance.
• Minor brain damage, where there is mild cognitive impairment or measurable changes on neuropsychological testing.
• Moderate brain damage, where there are significant ongoing cognitive deficits but the person can still live with some independence.
• Moderately severe and very serious brain damage, where the person needs substantial care or cannot return to their previous level of function.
• Very serious brain injury, affecting a person’s physical and mental faculties, where full time care is required

You can claim if you sustained the injury in Great Britain as a direct result of a violent crime, you reported the crime to the police at the earliest practical opportunity, and you submit your application within two years of the incident. Child victims have until their 20th birthday to apply. Exceptional circumstances can be considered to waive these time limits.

For the wider CICA claims process, the same eligibility rules apply across all injury types.

The CICA Scheme 2012 sets out a fixed tariff for brain damage in Annex E, Part A, Section 2. The figures below are lifted directly from the tariff and arranged into severity bands for ease of reading.

Source: CICA Scheme 2012, Annex E, Part A, Section 2 (head and neck), Brain Damage. The tariff is published in full on gov.uk.

What the tariff does not show is the part that often matters more: loss of earnings, special expenses, and mental injury awarded alongside the brain damage figure. The scheme cap is £500,000.

Most CICA claims with multiple injuries use the multiple-injury formula in the Scheme: 100% of the highest tariff, 30% of the second, and 15% of the third. That formula does not apply in the same way to brain injury claims.

Where brain damage is the lead injury, Note 3 of Annex E states: Where the cause of any injury is brain damage there will not be additional awards for separate injuries but the seriousness of the combined effects will be measured together.

In plain English, that means a brain injury compensation claim is not built by adding up the tariff for the, the concussion, memory loss, and the cognitive impairment separately. The scheme treats them as one combined picture and pays a single brain damage tariff for the whole.

That is a quiet but important rule. It changes how a brain injury claim should be built. Instead of itemising injuries and hoping for the multiple-injury formula to lift the figure, the work is in establishing the seriousness of the combined effects and placing the claim accurately within the brain damage tariff band.

The tariff figure is not the cap on what a CICA brain injury claim can recover. The scheme cap is £500,000. Loss of earnings and special expenses can lift the total significantly beyond the tariff figure where they apply.

Loss of earnings is available where the injury caused an incapacity for work for more than 28 weeks.

Special expenses cover costs the person has had to meet because of the injury that would not otherwise have arisen. They include private medical treatment that is not available on the NHS within a reasonable time, adaptations to the home, equipment, care costs, and travel for medical appointments. They also include the cost of administering the person’s affairs where they no longer have capacity to do so.

These two heads of claim can together more than double a tariff figure. They are also where most non-specialist applications under-recover.

Brain injuries often come with significant mental injury: post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, mood disorder, and personality change. The CICA scheme treats mental injury as a separate tariff section, with figures ranging from £1,000 for short-term mental anxiety to £27,000 for permanently disabling mental injury.

Whether and how a mental injury award is added on top of the brain damage tariff depends on the medical evidence. Where the mental injury is a recognised separate diagnosis that is not simply a symptom of the brain damage itself, it can be valued as a distinct head of claim. Where it is part of the combined effects of the brain damage, it sits inside the brain damage tariff per Note 3.

For the detail of this head of claim, see our page on claiming for mental injury alongside a brain injury.

The neuropsychology report is the document that draws this line. A good report distinguishes the cognitive sequelae of the brain damage from any separately diagnosable mental health condition. A poor report blurs the two and can leave the mental injury head of claim unsupported.

Examples from our recent settlements

Two recent brain injury settlements show how the parts come together. Details are anonymised but the structure is real.

Settlement at £258,000. A working-age client, victim of a single-incident assault outside a venue. The mechanism was a single blow leading to a fall, with a fractured skull and a frontal lobe haemorrhage on the scan. Post-traumatic epilepsy emerged nine months later. Ongoing executive function impairment meant the client could not return to work. The brain damage tariff sat in the very serious band. Loss of earnings to the scheme cap, plus a mental injury layer for a separately diagnosed PTSD with agoraphobia, brought the total to £258,000. The scheme would have undervalued this claim significantly if the mental injury had been folded into the brain damage tariff rather than supported as a distinct head of claim. Substantial medical evidence was obtained to show an incapacity for work from the date of the incident, until the date of retirement leading to an award for past and future loss of earnings with additional special expenses in the way of care costs.

Settlement at £250,000. A client sustained moderate to severe brain damage in a sustained assault. Ongoing care needs meant a partner had to leave work to provide care at home. The brain damage tariff sat in the moderately severe band. Loss of earnings for the client, plus special expenses for the partner’s lost earnings as a care cost, plus the cost of home adaptations, brought the total to £250,000. The work in this case was in evidencing the partner’s care role and protecting it as a special expense, and in establishing the long-term care projection from the medical evidence rather than a short-term snapshot.

The medical evidence is the part of a brain injury CICA claim that decides the tariff band and the additional heads of claim. Most under-recovery in brain injury claims happens here, not later in the process.

A neuropsychology report that does not test executive function in detail can leave a moderate brain damage award where moderately severe would have been right. A neurology report that does not address future seizure risk can leave a future care projection unsupported. A care needs assessment that focuses on current state without modelling deterioration can cap a special expense claim well below the real lifetime cost.

Winston Solicitors are a specialist CICA team based in Leeds and act for clients across the UK. Your first conversation with us is always free. There is no pressure to proceed. If we take your claim on, we work on a no win, no fee basis: there is nothing to pay if your claim does not succeed, and our fee is capped at a fixed percentage of your claim (usually 25% plus VAT) of the award if it does. We support you through the medical evidence process, manage the application, and handle review or appeal stages if the CICA’s initial decision does not reflect the seriousness of the injury.

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Brain injury CICA claims arise from a range of violent crimes: one-punch attacks, sustained assaults, attacks by strangers in unprovoked incidents, domestic violence, and sexual violence with a head injury element. Each scenario has its own evidential pattern but the tariff and the rules above apply across all of them. See our dedicated page on one-punch attack CICA claims for the most common single-incident scenario.

Brain injury CICA claims arise from a range of violent crimes: one-punch attacks, sustained assaults, attacks by strangers in unprovoked incidents, domestic violence, and sexual violence with a head injury element. Each scenario has its own evidential pattern but the tariff and the rules above apply across all of them. See our dedicated page on one-punch attack CICA claims for the most common single-incident scenario.