Calls for new coalition government to press ahead with new scheme to help victims of industrial diseases.
Some of the diseases such as mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos can take up to 50 years to emerge and campaigners say that as a result many are unable to track down their employers’ insurance company and are dying without receiving the compensation for industrial disease that they are entitled to.
Some of the victims would not have been aware of who the insurer was and by the time they had been diagnosed with the disease the employer may have ceased trading or shredded the old insurance details.
Now there are calls for the new government to take action by setting up a new Employers’ Liability Tracing Office to help trace employers’ insurers along with an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau. The Department for Work and Pensions has already set out plans for a tracing office which would include an electronic database of employers’ liability insurance policies.
A voluntary code for tracing employers’ liability was introduced in 1999 but many individuals are still without help and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) wants to see a last resort fund set up for those who cannot claim compensation for workplace injury and disease. However the Association of British Insurers is opposing the plans, saying that the new scheme would be unfair to law-abiding employers who may be forced to pay for their possibly uninsured competitors.
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