JOINT NEWS RELEASE 3                                                                           October 2003

 

The Second Joint Industry Representative Meeting –

INSURANCE IN ARBORICULTURE AND FORESTRY

 

The continuing efforts of professional and trade associations to find solutions to the problems of liability insurance cost and availability (particularly Employers’ Liability EL but also Public Liability PL) took another step forward at the second joint industry meeting at Arboricultural Association headquarters on 14th October.

 

The group was concerned to learn that the reserve allocated to a claim several years old and still to be settled had been increased five fold in four years - illustrative of the phenomenal increases in claims costs and one of the causes of recent premium increases.

 

On a more positive note David Hewitt (Algarve Insurance Brokers Ltd) reported that AXA were pleased with the industry’s response to the crisis.  Subject to a favourable review in the next few months it is hoped that AXA will continue to offer EL cover for forestry and arboriculture contractors next year.

 

AXA is pleased that the joint industry group has recognised the need to improve the health and safety performance of contractors.  The group has set the standard for arboricultural contractors and are finalising the standard for forestry contractors.  Hewitt says some contracting firms will be subject to pre-insurance and pre-renewal health and safety inspections prior to offering insurance and he will be appointing consultants to undertake these inspections shortly.  He said five companies had expressed an interest in tendering for the work.  Price will be an important criterion in selecting the company to undertake the inspections but an in depth understanding of the industry’s particular health and safety standards will be equally important.

 

The scale of the pre-insurance or pre-renewal health and safety inspection operation is expected to be enormous with an estimated 5,000 arboriculture and forestry businesses requiring insurance policies every year.  Consequently businesses will be selected for inspection by random sample but will also be ‘risk-rated’ – those having a poor record of EL or PL claims are likely to be selected for inspection first.

 

Conscious of the danger of ‘reinventing the wheel’ the group is looking at two other health and safety related initiatives, one by Government known as CHAS – Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme (see www.chas.gov.uk) and one by the Association of British Insurers known as the ABI Initiative for the Assessment of Trade Association Health and Safety Schemes.  The group will consider the merits of contractors having to meet the CHAS standard and then being ‘topped up’ by being assessed on the specific arboriculture or forestry standards.  The group will also submit the arboriculture and forestry standards they have determined to the ABI for comment and hopefully endorsement.

 

The group recognised the need to inform employers of the need for insurance.  Whilst this is generally well known amongst public employers such as local authorities, developers and so on private clients do not always understand the need to check contractors’ insurance details thoroughly.  In this respect two initiatives are proposed:

1.      To draft a letter for contractors to customise and issue to potential clients with a copy of their insurance certificate when quoting

2.      To prepare a leaflet ‘choosing a tree work contractor’ and make it available to the public and also for contractors to issue when quoting.  The leaflet will contain details of the HSE infoline which should be used to report unsafe practices

 

In July the Arboricultural Association issued a fact-finding questionnaire and results were analysed at the meeting.  Respondents were generally pleased with the work their representative organisations were doing on the insurance issue and acknowledged the need to improve the safety record, and that health and safety audits would be needed to achieve this.  They also pointed out the need for government to be persuaded to address the bigger picture and give support to the industries.

 

Since the first joint industry meeting in July and a letter to government outlining the industry’s problems  response from government has been acknowledgements from the Scottish Executive, the Northern Ireland Office and the Welsh Assembly and a moderately encouraging reply from the Department for Work and Pensions.  The DWP identifies four key areas for further action, summarised as:

1.      Working with stakeholders to make most use of the current legal system and discuss alternative methods of dispute resolution

2.      Investigating further the evidence for separating long term occupational disease risks from accident risks

3.      Making worker rehabilitation play a more central role in compensation

4.      Reforming the arrangements for the enforcement of EL and to tackle the unfairness of competition trading illegally without insurance cover.

 

The group was pleased to see that points 1 and 4 were actions they had suggested to government in their earlier letter.  It is likely that the group will send a delegation to government to press for progress with these and other initiatives.

 

The group was also conscious of the possible benefits of linking with other industries to add weight to the case and will investigate links with or through the Federation of Small Businesses.  The group is also keen to exploit benefits from media coverage and will be formulating a media strategy at their next meeting.

 

The group meets again on 3rd December to progress the issue.