DAILY NEWS Oct 22, 2007 5:17 PM - 0 comments

UK High Court says asbestos-related, pleural plaque claims not compensable

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United Kingdom insurers are “welcoming” a decision by the United Kingdom’s highest court, The House of Lords, which found that the existence of asbestos-related pleural plaques is not grounds for compensation by insurers.
The House of Lords also ruled that a psychiatric ailment caused by worrying about pleural plaques is not sufficient to justify a demand for compensation, according to A.M. Best’s BestWeek U.K.
“Proof of damage is an essential element in a claim of negligence,” wrote Lord Leonard Hoffman, a member of the court. “And, in my opinion, the symptomless plaques are not compensable damage.”
BestWeek interviewed a number of U.K. insurers about The House of Lord’s unanimous decision, which upheld a 2006 decision by the U.K. Court of Appeal. Zurich and Norwich Union engaged the court with a test case.
BestWeek quoted a release from Zurich, which said the court’s decision upheld the duty of insurers “to compensate people who’ve suffered an injury and not to pay out policyholders’ money for a condition that causes no symptoms and that cannot develop into any other condition such as lung cancer or mesothelioma.”
“We welcome it,” David Ross a Norwich Union spokesman is quoted as saying about the decision in BestWeek.
Ross told BestWeek the U.K. insurance industry had put aside an estimated 1.5 billion pounds (Cdn$2.98 billion) to pay pleural plaque claims over the next 25 years. Pleural plaques involve asbestos-related scars to the interior of the lung.
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