Insurance Shocker!

Claim for loss or damage is now quite commonplace, and Local Authorities and other public bodies are now well used to receiving claims.

Councillor Phil Bateman said today “I have been asking Wolverhampton City Council how they have been dealing with Insurance Claims and what sort of financial impact that the payments made for a third party claim had on the finances of the Authority.
One of the issues that cloud these figures is the fact that claimants have up to 3 years from the date of the incident to make a claim against the Authority for Personal Injury and 6 years for Property damage. This long period does give a bit of a false view of the situation in all the cases laid out here.

Looking at all the functions the City Council operates the Housing Function is the service where the most claims are made. With the least number of claims being made against the financial department.

The figures quoted below will be lifted as explained earlier people have up to 6 years to make claims.

• 1999/2000 a total of 1101 claims was made against all departments a total of £721,178 has been paid out to claimants to date. There is £448,925 still to be settled giving a massive total of £1,170.43 in payouts to claimants.
• 2000/2001 a total of 1092 claims were made, £574,237 to claimants of which £932,489 is still to be settled giving a total of £1,506,726
• 2001/2002 in this year 894 cases to date have claimed £314,193 has been paid out £915,610 are outstanding giving a total of £, 229,803.
• 2002/2003 This current year sees 699 cases claiming £126,660 being paid out with£1,619,375 outstanding, giving a total of £1.746.035

I am some what taken aback by the size of the figures and the liabilities that the City Council have in this direction. But the Treasurer informs me that
“A number of claims are defended and no award is made. Over the years steps have been taken by services to address problems and this is seen in the lower relative number of claims settled at a cost to the Council. This is illustrated in the ratio in the end column which measures claims paid relative to the claims made.”




These are set out here

1999/2000 Original Estimate of paid claims £1,874.483 ………Ratio 38.47%
2000/2001 £2,054,141………Ratio 27.95%
2001/2002 £2,041,336………Ratio 15.39%
2002/2003 £914,747………Ratio 13, 85%

So as you can see these are very big figures that have to be settled from resources collected from Counciltax and taxpayers. The good news is that the City Council is tackling these claims from the right way decreasing the ratio of original estimates to settled is evidence of the City Councils improved inspection regime/work practices-particularly Highways-in defending ‘slips and trips’ in particular.”