Employers’ Liability

Employers’ Liability is one of the few classes of insurance required by law in the UK. Richard Barnes, Business Development Executive at Towergate Insurance explains what employers should do if one of their employees is injured whilst at work.

Domiciliary care plays an important role in enabling people with increasingly complex conditions to stay living at home.  But with more complicated care packages comes an increased risk to care workers. Service users with conditions which affect behaviour, like advanced dementia, may injure the care worker. In addition, care packages involving moving and handling procedures can result in injury if things go wrong.   

The sector has also seen rising costs, as well as risk.  As a specialist provider of domiciliary care insurance, Towergate has seen first-hand the rising costs across the UK social care sector and unfortunately, insurance is no different. This is partly due to the unique nature of the industry that requires specialist knowledge and expertise.  However, the most significant reason for these premium increases is the volume of Employers’ Liability claims being reported.

Saying Sorry

At the time, it’s natural for an employer to want to apologise should an incident occur. In the unfortunate case of a member of staff being injured whilst on duty, apologising to your employee is not admitting fault. However, you should be prepared for any possible claim by recording evidence; just because an accident has happened, it does not mean that you are legally liable or that compensation should be paid

Future-proof your foundations

An employee has up to three years in which to make a personal injury claim.  We have often found that sometimes after an incident has occurred, employees can suddenly decide to pursue a claim for previous injury, which at the time of happening, they chose not to take further. These claims can be made by existing or previous employees, so we advise that you keep your employee records up to date.  It is sensible to keep employee records for six years and/or any legally required period after an employee leaves.

It is essential that you contact the insurance provider you had cover with during the time of the alleged incident, as they will be able to give you relevant advice and inform you of steps that will need to be taken. If you have switched insurers since the occurrence, you will still have to inform the insurance provider you were with at the time of the incident as they will be the ones who may have to pay out if the claim is successful.

Accurate Record Keeping

If a claim is going to be successfully defended, then significant records will need to be submitted to provide evidence that the relevant procedures were in place at the time of the incident.
Evidence can include the following, but there are also other examples that your insurer can inform you of, depending on the incident.

• Accident book entry, including photos of the scene and/or injury
• RIDDOR report
• Copies of any correspondence exchanged with the HSE regarding the incident
• Copies of the service user’s care plan
• Details of any similar incidents or complaints made by staff regarding the service user concerned
• Confirmation of any dates of absence which the claimant incurred because of the incident
• First aid reports
• Accident investigation reports
• Minutes from any health and safety meetings at which the incident was discussed
• Claimant training records
• Statements from any witnesses to the incident
• Details of any remedial action that may have been taken because of the incident
• Claimant’s earnings details for the 3 months prior to the incident and the month after returning to work

It is not only important, but a policy condition, to report any incident which you think may give rise to a claim. By reporting an incident, it is important to understand that this is not the same as making a claim. Instead, you are making your insurer aware of an accident that has occurred, which provides them with the opportunity to consider the circumstances and decide if they want to gather a suite of evidence to ensure that they are prepared should a claim be reported in the future.

About the author

Richard Barnes has worked as an insurance broker for over 30 years. Richard spent five years working as a specialist construction broker in Sydney Australia where he gained the Qualified Professional Insurance Broker Qualification.

Since his return to the UK in 2008 he has worked for Towergate exclusively supporting social care providers and has been awarded the Cert. CII qualification. Richard is also part of Towergate’s Cyber steering committee supporting clients with this emerging risk.

Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on a non-specific basis, we cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems we recommend that professional advice be sought.