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Mesothelioma Claims - A Quiet Scandal

In a normal case of claiming insurance against an employer for an accident at work, it wouldn’t be the employer that pays out in the event of a successful claim, but his or her insurer. In these instances, it is easy for the claimant’s solicitor to trace the insurance company, because they are (usually) still in existence.

Mesothelioma claims are different. Because of the nature of this aggressive, asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma is usually diagnosed up to 40 years after the exposure has occurred. This presents a huge problem when faced with a claim with a 40-year history - the company being held responsible has often ceased trading. Tracing the insurers is a monumental task, carried out by the Association of British Insurers’ (ABI) tracing scheme. When you consider that the scheme has only one person dealing with mesothelioma claims, it is not difficult to see why so many claims are going awry due to an inability to trace the insurers.

To add insult to injury, insurers are now being accused of profiteering from this logjam. The tracking scheme, run and self-regulated by the insurance industry, is failing to find almost half of the policies covering victims’ compensation claims. It is estimated that compensation claims that are being scuppered because of this inability to trace the insurers (by the insurers) are saving the industry an estimated £60million pounds a year. The industry has been accused of at best, being culpable of mismanaging their policy record archives and at worst, guilty of ‘profiteering from ‘incompetence’. Although there is no actual foundation in the allegation that insurance companies are profiteering from the collapse of many mesothelioma cases because of the inability to trace the insurance companies involved, in the eyes of a sceptical public, the position could look somewhat tarnished.

The ABI has failed to locate 48% of the insurers of companies accused of exposing workers to asbestos, leaving more than 3,000 people without hope of compensation. Only 39% of mesothelioma victims who attempted to trace insurance policies issued before 1972 were successful. The other 71% had no chance of tracing those responsible for paying out on compensation claims for mesothelioma. They now have to hope that the Government will step up to the challenge, but if it does, the payouts will have to come out of the public purse. The benefits paid are a tenth of what mesothelioma victims would hope to gain from a successful compensation claim.

The ABI has strenuously denied the accusation of profiteering, refuting ‘totally’ any suggestion that the industry is looking to profit from denying people compensation. They say they are committed to making sure that compensation is provided to mesothelioma victims. But only having one person to trace claims relating to 40-year old insurance policies may be seen by many as not exactly helping the cause, either. The ABI has admitted that the scheme is ‘not delivering’ and that figures were not acceptable. The Government is now considering establishing a ‘more formal’ tracing office and the creation of a fund of last resort to make sure that those who cannot trace the insurance company concerned will at least have something by way of state-assisted compensation. Whether this new department has the teeth and resources needed to do a better job for thousands of victims remains to be seen. In the meantime, the number of mesothelioma victims continues to grow as more people are diagnosed with the disease. It can only be hoped that they do not have to face the same obstacles to justified compensation payments that older victims have had to deal with, and that the ABI’s tracing scheme (or whatever replaces it) works successfully for many more victims.

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