Public bodies and public authority claim insurance

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Public bodies and public authority claim insurance

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In this age of austerity public bodies are under unprecedented financial and people pressures. At the same time claim volumes continue to place strain on insurance programmes and risk management strategies. We have long and deep experience of acting for public bodies.

Our nationally renowned team handles all types of claims: from catastrophic to volume solutions; on a delegated basis or working to you through your protocols and the portal. We are experts in employers' and public liability, motor and professional risks. Our lawyers are skilled in niche areas, such as human rights, data protection, information security, child and adult safeguarding and social care cases.

What we do...

Our clients – local authorities, government agencies, police forces, fire services and the NHS. Insurers, TPA’s, loss adjusters and brokers.
70 dedicated specialists – including 15 partners and 10 associates based in our national office network.
Sector experts - we have unrivalled skill and experience in acting in the most complex and challenging of cases including group actions, public inquiries and Court of Appeal and Supreme Court hearings. We are also adept at providing volume solutions.

Specialist advice – from claims investigations and Health & Safety Executive prosecutions through to inquests, complex industrial disease work and occupiers liability.
Claims innovations – BJ Protect, Fraud Arrest and Best Offer are a small number of the products which we have on offer to drive down the cost of litigation.
Industry memberships – Forum of Insurance Lawyers, British Insurance Law Association, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, International Bar Association.

What our clients say....

Many thanks to you and your colleagues from Browne Jacobson for hosting the training yesterday. It was really helpful to hear from the experts first hand and to put some real scenarios to them. The pitch was at the right level and you had made it relevant to our area of work which was greatly appreciated. We have all come away with an improved confidence about how to handle such cases in the future and how to tackle some of the legacy complaints that are still sat with us.

Recent experience

Acting for a local authority in a Court of Appeal case, successfully arguing that failing to wear a seatbelt led to contributory negligence by a claimant to the amount of 50%.
Defending a local authority that had allegedly been negligent in failing to remove a child from her mother’s care, negligently placed her with foster carers, failed to properly manage and supervise those placements and general mismanagement in care. Following Woodland v Essex County Council [2013], the claim was amended to include that the defendant should be vicariously liable for the wrongful acts of foster carers, or that it owed the claimant a non-delegable duty of care whilst she was in foster care. The claim was brought long after the expiry of the primary limitation period but allowed to proceed on the basis that there was enough documentary and witness evidence available for a fair trial. The judge found that the foster carers had abused the claimant, however the claims failed. The judge found that social workers had acted reasonably based on the evidence of the defendant’s witnesses and social care expert, that there was no vicarious liability and it would not be “fair, just and reasonable” to impose a non-delegable duty on the defendant. The claim was recently heard in the Court of Appeal in July 2015 and judgment was handed down in November 2015. For full details of the judgment please click here to read our article.