Comprehensive guidance on how to manage highways legal claims, such as compensation from pothole-related incidents, has been released by an insurance special interest group.
Sharing advice from solicitors, insurers, claims handlers and member practitioners, the manual aims to give pratical advice on how to tackle highways legal claims.
Released by the Alarm Insurance Special Interest Group, which represents members working in the insurance sector, the Highways Claims Management Manual.
Manual covers the following areas:
Section 1 - Highways Liability - The Law
Section 2 - Managing Highway Liability Risks
Section 3 - Highways Claims Handling
Section 4 - Managing the Liability Risks
Section 5 - The Role of the Highway Authority's Risk / Insurance Manager
The insurance group suggest there is a ‘wide disparity in claims outcomes’ between councils with high performing authorities maintaining long-term repudiation levels of over 90% together with minimising costs from claims where there is no defence available.
The estimated annual cost for road user compensation claims based on the 2015 ALARM survey was £40.8m, broken down to £23m for compensation plus £17.8m on staffing costs.
The document is free to members of the insurance group and available to download from the website.
