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UK Court Decides Who Pays Asbestos Damages
By asbestoshub | December 4, 2008
Asbestos-related cancer victims and their families have won an important test case over access to compensation after six cases were brought against insurance firms which were disputing whether they were liable.
The hearing hinged on which insurance policy would be held responsible — the one effective at the time of exposure or the one effective when a worker becomes ill. They opted for the latter.
If the Court had ruled the policy in place at the time of illness was the relevant one it could have made it harder to secure compensation.
Asbestos-related disease is the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK, mainly affecting former workers in shipyards and other heavy industries and asbestos diseases like mesothelioma can develop 25 to 40 years after exposure
About 2,000 people were diagnosed with asbestos diseases in 2007, but in the future it is expected to cost insurers millions of pounds as all the cases dating back to the 1970s come to light.
Employers usually have liability insurance to insure them against the cost of legal action by staff injured at work but a group of insurance firms had questioned which policy should be enacted.
They argued during a nine week hearing in 2008 that the policy in place at the time the cancer develops was the one that a compensation claim should be brought against rather than the policy that was in place when the worker was employed by the firm and called it common sense as victims could have worked for several employers and be exposed to asbestos at each place.
One of the key problems with this approach is that many insurance companies today have exemptions for asbestos. That only leaves the employer for the victims to go after, but as the disease takes so long to develop many of the firms have ceased to exist.
In the US it is usually the insurer who held the policy at the time of exposure who pays.
Topics: Claims, Law, Lawsuits |
