Accident claims hit new £8m record

UCATT lawyers last year secured more than £8m in compensation awards for injuries sustained by union members in site accidents.

The total recovered was £8.7m, representing a 10% increase on the £7.9m in compensation won in the previous year. This was itself a record at the time. The new record sum represented some 776 successful claims paid out by insurers and companies.

Alan Ritchie, UCATT general secretary, said the figures underlined the effectiveness of the union’s accident compensation procedures. But he added: “Behind every settlement there is a story of misfortune and pain. So, ideally, we would like the compensation total to be zero.”

Total accident compensation won by the union over the past five years now adds up to nearly £31m from more than 3,200 successful claims.

The latest payouts included £1.2m compensation for widows of asbestos victims in a six-month period.