In the meantime, a new blog has now been launched on the GH Consultants website and can be found at www.gh-consultants.co.uk/legal-agent-blog/.  We look forward to welcoming you to our new blog and receiving your comments and insights.

The new firm will be known as GH Consultants Ltd, although the existing trading titles will be retained.  Geoden Agency will continue to build on over 20 years of accident and insurance investigations, whilst Herdens will handle the firms’ tracing, process serving and other investigation tasks.

As part of this exciting development, the existing Haywards Heath office in Sussex will be relocated within the town to allow for an expansion of staff numbers to support the two agencies’ increasing workload.  This will then become the main administration office for the merged business, with a satellite office being retained in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Geoff Dent, Senior Partner at Geoden Agency said “Having spent several years in managerial positions with insurers and law firms I originally saw a need for a quality investigation service covering the South East of England.  Within 5 years we had expanded operations across the country and are looking at continuing growth some 20 years later.  Due to demand from our clients we need to expand so here we go into a new and exciting chapter.”

About Geoden Agency:

Geoden Agency was founded in 1989 by Geoff Dent.  Geoff has over 30 years experience of handling insurance and accident claims, including spells with the London Transport Executive, Lloyds syndicates and law firms based in the City and the North of England.  Geoden Agency specialises in accident investigations with a particular interest in motor insurance claims.  In recent years the firm has become know for its work investigating credit hire claims.  Geoden Agency currently operates from offices in Haywards Heath, Sussex which will be relocated as described above.  Haywards Heath is conveniently located a short distance from London and the M25 near Gatwick Airport.

About Herdens:

Herdens was founded in 2007 by Chris Dent, son of Geoff Dent.  Chris has worked within the insurance industry for the majority of his working life, including roles in underwriting, administration, marketing, compliance and debt recovery.  Herdens has become known for its nationwide process serving operation offering cost effective solutions to solicitors, government bodies and other firms and organisations.  This is backed-up by associated services such as tracing and general investigations.  The firm operates from an office in Bracknell, Berkshire, which will become the satellite office for the new merged business.

If you are unlucky enough to catch a wheel in one of these pot holes, you should always stop as soon as you can to check for damage.  Even if nothing is obviously damaged, I would advise that you consider stopping regularly during your journey to check that nothing is coming lose.

With some holes over a foot wide and very deep, it is not too difficult to damage your tyre, wheel or suspension.  Tyre damage could lead to a slow puncture caused by a broken seal and even a small crack in the wheel could gradually get bigger, ultimately caused the wheel to fail.

If you are comprehensively insured, your insurers should consider a claim for damage to wheels and suspension, but won’t usually cover tyre damage, however be warned that depending on the level of your excess, it may not be worth claiming.

The roads are usually the responsibility of the local authority and it is possible that you may have a claim against them for the damage caused to your vehicle.  To give you the best possibility of success, you need to collect evidence of the pot hole and how long it has been there as soon after the accident as you can.  Naturally Herdens will be happy to provide an independent motor claims investigator to assist you with the evidence gathering, including photographs, measurements, sketch plans and local enquiries.  If you are do claim through your insurance, make sure that your insurers are doing their best to recover your losses.  Consider using Herdens Motor Claims Advice & Assistance product to help you prove your case to your insurers.

We look forward to working with you all again during 2009.  Keep checking back for information about Herdens, our industry and the services we offer.

When the investigators of Herdens introduce themselves to members of the public as legal agents (or occasionally private investigators), we frequently have to explain exactly what a legal agent does.  This usually leads to the question “so are you a kind of private detective then?”

Private detectives is a term that Herdens attempts to avoid, as we feel it can give the image of an unprofessional organisation whose staff sneak around and use underhand techniques to obtain information about their targets before getting into an exciting and dramatic confrontation.  This image has often been promoted by television programmes and film productions which seek to glamorise this sort of occupation, but unsurprisingly don’t usually give the full and accurate picture

Although as legal agents, Herdens carry out very similar investigations to those which private detectives would consider taking on, we prefer using the term legal agents as we think it better describes the relationship that we have with our clients.  When instructed to carry out investigations, we act in the knowledge that we are the face of and are often seen as agents and representatives of the firms which instruct us.  For this reason we always maintain the highest standards and ensure that all of our work is legal and transparent.

Private detectives are also often associated with investigations into cheating partners and spouses and the controversial honey pot approach.  Just to be clear, Herdens do not generally accept instructions directly from members of the public, preferring instead to work with their legal and professional representatives.  We also try to avoid matrimonial investigations, since this is not currently an area of expertise for Herdens and there are a number of other firms who are happy to carry out this type of work and have the necessary skills and equipment.

Sadly we can also report that the life of a legal agent is not all excitement, drama, sticky situations and near misses.  This however doesn’t mean that the work we do is not different and varied and there isn’t the occasional story of funny or strange goings on.  Hopefully we can tell some of our stories in later blog entries.

Herdens have a variety of services that they offer, with particular experience of investigating insurance claims on behalf of the claimant and defendant parties and their representatives.

We also act as process servers, delivering legal papers and documents on behalf of companies and the solicitors acting for them.  We will cover more about this part of our services in a later blog entry.

We hope to regularly keep the blog updated with information about Herdens’ services and the industry we work in.

As we go on, please feel free to comment on our articles and let us know what you think