Tracing old employers liability insurers

Historically individuals who wanted to make a claim against a former employer in relation to injury or disease caused during their employment may have run into difficulties. This was largely due to the nature of industrial disease, such as asbestosis, which can take many years to show symptoms, by which time past employers may not be able to trace who was their Employers’ Liability (EL) insurer at the time.

The Employers’ Liability Tracing Office (ELTO) is an independent body that has been formed to aid the process of tracing the insurer for an employer by recording the details on its Employers’ Liability Database (ELD). This ELD improves upon the previous tracing service, which relied on insurers checking against their own records.

The ELD will record:

• Details of new and renewed EL insurance policies that incept on or after 1 April, 2011.

• Old EL policies that have new claims recorded against them.

• Successful traces undertaken by its predecessor – the ABI.

The results from the search of the ELD are not proof of insurance, or proof of liability. The ELD will hold information against employers based on their unique Employers Reference Number (ERN) – which will be identical to the PAYE reference number under which their employers’ income tax and national insurance contributions are made. Insurers may also hold this information independently if they chose.

We will be contacting all our existing EL customers over the next year to collect their ERN, in order to record sufficient information on the ELD or their insurers database where appropriate.

For further information on these services, please contact us on 01274 515747
or email us at mail@lwood.co.uk.