Levenes call for the establishment of an Employers Liability Insurance Bureau

Tim Beasley, Partner and Head of Catastrophic Injury at Levenes Solicitors is calling for the establishment of an Employers Liability Insurance Bureau (ELIB) to cover the claims of employers who are uninsured.

In 2020, the Motor Insurers Bureau, (MIB) stated that every 20 minutes in the UK someone is hit by an uninsured driver or a driver who cannot be traced. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those drivers who do not respect the law which requires them to insure their vehicles, are often no respecters of the highway code and consequently, they cause a disproportionate number of claims. Thankfully, the MIB is there to cover those claims. The MIB is funded by a levy on all motor insurance policies. The MIB is there to ensure that when someone is injured by an uninsured driver, the injured person is compensated.

Sadly, there is no such equivalent body for claims arising from accidents at work.

Levenes have dealt with a number of cases recently where the employer has no insurance. Typically, these are small machine shop or factory workshops employing a handful of people. These workplaces use circular saws, band saws and other machines which are very dangerous if not properly maintained. A number of cases that have been reported to Levenes have involved finger and hand amputations. As with uninsured drivers, the employers who run these businesses have no interest in health and safety of their employees nor for their legal obligations to have insurance.

Not only are these injuries often life changing but insult to injury is added when there is no redress. It is all too easy for someone to set up a limited company and then liquidate the company when a claim is made. The directors walk away and are free to start up another company.
The Health and Safety Executive have the power to prosecute these companies and their directors, but they do not have the resources to fully police small businesses in an effective way. Furthermore, even if they do prosecute, that does not help the injured employee as the compensation awards made in the criminal courts are never full awards of compensation.

“We are seeing too many of these cases where innocent workers are being maimed with no redress from the employer”, says Tim Beasley. “An Employers Liability Insurance Bureau is one way to address this. The ELIB would function in the same way as the MIB for road traffic collision cases. The victim should have the right to bring a direct claim against the ELIB if the employer was not insured”

It would take legislation for an ELIB to be established and it does not seem to be a priority for the current or recent governments whose general approach to business regulation is to seek to reduce regulation without any thought to the consequences. Persuading a government to force employers liability insurers to pay a levy to an ELIB will be an uphill struggle. An ELIB seems some way off. Until such a body is established, there will continue to be victims who cannot receive compensation.

In such cases, the only payment victims can claim is Industrial Injuries Disablement benefit which is a non-means tested state benefit awarded to victims of industrial accidents if they are assessed as 14% disabled or more.

Levenes would like to see a campaign started for the establishment of an ELIB in the hope that however hard the battle may be, one day, victims will be able to get justice.

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