Work Deafness Compensation Claims on Increase

One of Europe´s biggest work injury insurer´s – Zurich Insurance – has revealed that work deafness compensation claims increased by almost 25 percent in the UK during 2011.

The insurance company claims that part of the significant increase in claims from employees seeking compensation for work deafness is due to the marketing of claims companies targeting this particular industrial disease; but personal injury solicitors have pointed to a recent change in the law which lowered the noise threshold above which employees could claim hearing injury compensation.

The Health and Safety Executive has estimated that more than one million employees in the UK are exposed to dangerous levels of noise at work, and the TUC claims that 170,000 people suffer deafness, tinnitus or other ear injury due to exposure to excessive noise at work.

Solicitors´ organisations have identified a variety of settings from which claims for work deafness compensation have originated – including bars and shops as well as more traditional manufacturing environments – but, as a Cenric Clement-Evans of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers explained, proving that a work deafness injury is attributable to the negligence of an employer can be difficult.

 “Like many industrial disease cases you’ve got other competing causes, potentially, but a medical assessor would look at things like shooting, DIY, music.” Mr Clement-Evans continued “they [claimants]may have seen adverts, but they are people who have been exposed to noise – probably, the vast majority, in breach of the employer’s duty of care.”