Accident at work

MrsTee_2

It's 2 and a half years since my husband had an accident at work. The firm admitted responsibility almost straight away as it was equipment failure. After 2 years Zurich Insurance finally agreed to pay for the surgery that was needed (the NHS won't do that sort of surgery in our area - and like the solicitor says, why should he wait on the nhs when he can get it done privately paid for by the firm's insurers). The surgery wasn't as successful as we hoped and he now needs further tests to find out if there's anything else that can be done. Meanwhile he's been unable to return to work since the surgery last October so the solicitor got the insurance to agree to pay interim payments to cover lost earnings. He had 1 chq at the end of December and nothing since. Everytime the solicitor rings the insurance company have an excuse, he's now got to resort to applying for court action in order to try and get them to agree to fund these tests and to pay the interim payments. They don't seem to understand that the longer they hesitate the more it's ending up costing them as he cant return to work until it's sorted.

Has anyone else had bad experiences with Zurich?

missile

Unfortunately it can take a while to sort out a claim. It can be a mistake to settle too quickly. As you have found, it is not uncommon for complications to occur years after the event.

I hope you have a good solicitor?

mattymoo

I work for a specialist industrial employers liability insurer and we use a firm called Corpore (http://www.corpore.co.uk/services.asp) for management of certain cases.

Corpore carry out independent assessments on the claimant to look at adaptations that can be made, private medical treatments / therapies and general case management.

The claimant gets help in returning to work sooner rather than later.
The employer retains a valued employee.
The insurer hopefully sees a saving on the loss of earnings element of the claim.

All insurers have access to Corpore services so you could perhaps ask the solicitor to suggest it to Zurich.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

missile wrote: »

Unfortunately it can take a while to sort out a claim. It can be a mistake to settle too quickly. As you have found, it is not uncommon for complications to occur years after the event.

I hope you have a good solicitor?

A relative had an industrial injury involving her lower spine.It took 7 years to get a payout for compensation.This was a good thing as over those years problems developed because of the injury which had not been forseen.She ended up unable to work.If a payout had been calculated earlier she would of lost out big time.Her solicitor told her on his first visit that it would only be common sense to see how her problems developed or improved before she settled.She had about nine assessments during the process.Sometimes although hard it is best to wait.

geri1965_2

But the OP isn't moaning about the length of time it's taking to settle the claim, she is concerned about the lack of progress being made with regard to the tests and wants another interim payment.

I do some work for Zurich and they're normally pretty good with agreeing to make interim payments. Perhaps the claims handler is out of their depth or snowed under with work. Threatening to make an application to the court usually does the trick.