An employer is legally required to have Employers Liability Insurance.
They have a duty of care to their employees and have to work within strict
Health & Safety guidlines and Regulation. If a claim is made against your
employer, even if you are partly responsible for the accident, you will
not be pursuing compensation directly from them, but rather from their insurers.
Examples of Work Injury Claims Include:
Your employer is obliged to protect you from risk of injury at work. It is
important that the workplace is safe and risk assessments have been made to ensure
that procedures are in place to ensure that risk of serious injury is kept to a
minimum.
However accidents in the workplace do happen. This could be as a result of the
employer not providing adequate protective clothing (gloves and goggles). Injury
could occur as a result of the employer not keeping within the health and safety
guidlines.
Examples of these are "Work at Height regulations", or inadequate maintenance of equiptment
that fails to comply with "The Provision and Use of Work Equiptment Regulations 1998".
It may be that an employee has been exposed unknowingly to a toxic substance that has
resulted in a harmful medical condition. At it's worst this could be mesothelioma after
exposure to asbestos, this may not be diagnosed till many years later.
Manual Handling Claims are some of the most common workplace injuries. These involve
the lifting or moving of heavy loads. Without the correct procedures in place, these can
lead to some serious accidents and injuries.
A fall from height claim can be submitted if the employer has not provided sufficient
protection to reduce the risk of serious injury. These often occur on building sites where
there are ladders or scaffolding that are defective or unsuitable.
Factories and warehouses can prove to be dangerous places to work without the correct
Health & Safety procedures. Examples of which are fork-lift truck accidents, or falling
objects as a result of items not being correctly stacked on shelves.
Amounts of compensation will be determined by the extent of the injuries suffered and
loss of future earnings. Serious injury could be in the form of required amputations,
spinal injuries, severe burns, head injuries or loss of sight.
For a claim to succeed it is important that negligence on behalf of the employer can be
proven. Witness statements should be taken as soon as possible. Photographs are useful as
well as all Company Accident Records.
Compensation must include adequate time for recovery and most importantly rehabilitation,
such that you are able get back to work having been granted a full return to a state of
physical and phsycological well being.