12/02/2010 - Workers to get compensation help
Workers with serious industrial diseases who have found it difficult to claim compensation because they cannot find their employers' insurance records will be offered help by a new database.
The electronic database of employers' insurance policies, planned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), will make it easier for people to track down records. A bureau to provide funds is also in the pipeline.
Lord McKenzie, the DWP minister, said: "We want to set up a better tracing service with a dedicated database to help them track down these policies, and a fund of last resort if all else fails."
Because some industrial diseases only appear decades later, a number of people have struggled to trace their employers' liability insurance policy to make a claim for compensation, as the company may have ceased trading, not kept old insurance records or mislaid them.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The Government proposals will ensure that, where an insurer cannot be traced, those who develop a disease will receive compensation in the same way that someone hit by a car will get compensation where the owner of the vehicle cannot be traced."
Copyright © Press Association 2010
Related links
|
