Following the UK law, workplace needs to be insured in case of any accidents. Workplace must have public liability insurance; this type of insurance covers employees as well as customers.
The easiest example can be slip on spilled water in supermarket. During daily shopping you haven’t seen water on a floor and slipped on it; due to the accident you have swollen ankle and you have to take few weeks off work.
Public liability insurance covers you in this case. You can be entitled to make a claim against supermarket for not keeping shop floor safe.
Even if you are not employee and you haven’t paid for the insurance you are covered by supermarket policy. This applies to all public places in UK.
As an employee you are covered by the same policy. Once you entered your workplace, public liability insurance covers you against any accidents.
Another easy example, lets say that you are working in a factory on busy production site, lots of people and machinery; one of fork lift driver accidentally hit you. On this case fork lift driver doesn’t need insurance to use fork lift on side because all workplace is covered by liability insurance. Therefore you are not claiming against the person, you are using insurance policy in place.
In this case you are entitled to get a compensation for all losses i.e. time off work, and all medication/therapy needed for full recovery.
Before you make a claim for accident in public place you need to make sure that you have reported the accident (usually to site manager) and if it’s possible get a witness details. In this case you are making a claim against insurance company, not the shop managers. That is the reason why you will need as many evidence as possible. Shop staff can be very friendly and admits liability but it’s the insurance company that pay the compensation, and like majority of insurance companies, they will not be willing to do it “just like that”.
Claim after accident at work is slightly less complicated; workplace must have site managers, supervisors and trained first-aiders. After the accident firs-aider is usually the firs person that will see the injury and talk to you (it is very important to say how the accident actually happened). After receiving first aid depending on injuries you can go to hospital, home or in best cases continue to work.
Regardless of the nature of accident and how serious it was manager will be responsible for making a report, this report can be very important. Once you will be able to come back to work your manager should give you a copy of the report to check and sign; ALWAYS make sure that content of the report is correct.
Process of making claim in both of those cases is very similar to road traffic accident (check it in previous blog), you will need to find a medical agency and solicitor firm.
Medical agency will be responsible for preparing the report and solicitors will be responsible for preparing all required documents, contacting the 3rd party and updating you on regular basis.