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Safety and Health Practitioner (SHP) is first for independent health and safety news.
February 16, 2012

Insurers sign up to myth-busting and savings pledge at PM summit

The Government and the insurance industry have thrashed out a deal that has, as its mission, the dismantling of a compensation culture and the slashing of health and safety red tape.
 
The prime minister held a summit on Tuesday (14 February) with members of the insurance industry, consumer and business groups, and the HSE to discuss, among other issues, rising premiums that businesses are facing to protect themselves from personal-injury claims.
 
The summit saw David Cameron reaffirm his commitment to tackle the compensation culture, reduce legal costs, and cut health and safety bureaucracy. In return, the insurance industry promised to pass the resulting savings on to consumers.
 
It also committed to adjust premiums to reflect any reductions in legal costs created through a new fast-track employers’ liability scheme, which will be based on the existing process for road-traffic accident (RTA) personal-injury cases, as well as planned reforms of ‘no-win, no-fee’ and a ban on referral fees.
 
Other measures were agreed to address the fear of compensation that Mr Cameron believes is exerting a stranglehold on business’ ability to thrive.
 
To dispel the myths that still surround health and safety legislation, insurers agreed to provide short guidance for all clients at the point of purchasing insurance. This guidance will set out what small businesses need to do and, critically, what they don’t need to do to comply with health and safety law and acquire insurance cover, to ensure that businesses are not asked to go beyond what is required by law.
 
As a further measure to tackle the compensation culture, insurers also promised to challenge more vexatious health and safety civil claims.
 
The Law Society, personal-injury solicitors and workplace safety pressure group Families Against Corporate Killers criticised the prime minister for not including them in yesterday’s discussions.

Approaches to managing the risks associated Musculoskeletal disorders

In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, we hear from Matt Birtles, Principal Ergonomics Consultant at HSE’s Science and Research Centre, about the different approaches to managing the risks associated with Musculoskeletal disorders.

Matt, an ergonomics and human factors expert, shares his thoughts on why MSDs are important, the various prevalent rates across the UK, what you can do within your own organisation and the Risk Management process surrounding MSD’s.

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Michael
Michael
12 years ago

This PM is still dossn’t get the difference between the alledged civil claims culture and H&S legislation. Anway the insurers will just ignore this and do want they want

Scotteverest05
Scotteverest05
12 years ago

This is a disgrace, I work in the legal industry as an accident investigator and have done so for the last 20 years and the can say with confidence that the majority of accidents are caused by businesses (small or large) not even doing the minimum to comply with legislation, clearly if businesses were to improve H&S then accidents would reduce therefore reducing claims. Get Health and Safety right first. Myths are created by those with little or no knowledge at all of Health and Safety Law.

Scotteverest05
Scotteverest05
12 years ago

Great hold a summit with those parties that would benefit and profit from the changes rather than including all parties especially those that are to lose. In addition, just to note the RTA protocol came in to force almost 2 years ago reducing legal fees, have we seen a reduction in Motor Insurance premiums? the short answer is NO. Also, Insurers’ collect referral fees for referring claims to solicitors, they’ve profited big style from the “Compensation Culture” and blame Solicitors.