The ABI has called for urgent reform to the system of industrial deafness claims. The number of claims has increased from 1,000 in March 2012 to 3,500 in March 2014 with claims taking on average 17 months to settle, leading to significantly spiralling costs for insurers.
As deafness claims commonly involve multiple Defendants they are not suitable for use in the present MoJ Portal system and accordingly do not attract fixed fees.
The ABI has suggested an extension of the current portal or the creation of a bespoke deafness portal is required in order to reduce costs and settlement times.
The ABI's plea follows the Court of Appeals rejection of a claim from a former railway worker who claimed hearing loss as a result of working at an engineering works between 1953 and 1988.
The Claimant had attended 11 medical consultations for hearing problems between 1982 and 2011. It was not until 2011 that he was told part of his hearing loss was noise induced. The Court of Appeal held that it was reasonable to expect a Claimant to make further enquiries once the issue of noise exposure had been raised in 1982, which he had failed to do.
A Claimant is required to show they had no actual or constructive knowledge of the cause and the Judgment shows the threshold is fairly high. It is hoped that the judgment assists in discouraging spurious claims.
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