Health & Safety
Health & Safety is a very onerous duty and one which requires more and
more time dedicated to it every day as responsibilities and potential litigation
increase. Corporate manslaughter is a very real threat to any business.
Many companies now utilise the services of external consultants to assist
in its management. This is often arranged seperately from the insurance programme
with both broker and consultant working independently with no communication.
It makes sense to utilise your broker for this function to obtain full benefit.
We are able to provide you with a full Health & Safety Audit which will
assist your current procedures and develop a programme of improvement (as
required). This could be extended to include day to day advice and guidance
depending on how much time your Health & Safety Officer can devote to
this area bearing in mind that he may have other responsibilities. A fresh
eye can often bring to light issues that perhaps have been overlooked in the
past.
Statistics show that approximately 80% of Liability claims which are settled
on the recommendation of a Loss Adjuster are done so not because the Employer
has been negligent but because it cannot be proven that they have not been.
A Health & Safety Audit by an external consultant will provide you with
some defence.
In addition to focusing Health & Safety at work, your Health & Safety
Officer does have a personal legal obligation and is open to prosecution from
the Health & Safety Executive. Retaining the services of a qualified Health
& Safety Consultant does not remove your responsibilities but it will
reduce the risk of such action and will assist you in defending actions brought
by employees and the HSE.
Generally the benefits of going down this route are as follows:-
• Will focus future Health & Safety initiatives. A Health &
Safety Audit will highlight potential problem areas and will enable you to
ensure that funds are directed in the right place.
• Once all of the recommendations have been completed (and we are assuming
here that there will be some - you may be pleasantly surprised!) the document
can be used in conjunction with a marketing exercise at renewal to enable
us to obtain the most competitive terms available and put you in a stronger
position compared with a company that has not gone down this route.
• It will help you defend your position in the event of any future claims
being made against the company.
• It will help defend your Health & Safety Officer in the event
of an HSE investigation.
• It will give your Health & Safety Officer confidence taking this
responsibility forward.
Question: Can you prove it? You can have the best training programme in your
industry but can you prove it? You may regularly tell your workforce to wear
their PPE but can you prove it? We can help put your company in the best position
to prevent accidents and defend claims.