FAQs

An industrial disease claim is compensation for an illness caused by your work over time, rather than by a one-off accident. Examples include asbestos-related conditions, hand arm vibration syndrome from vibrating tools, occupational dermatitis, industrial asthma and repetitive strain injuries. Employers owe a duty not to cause illness through their operations, and where they fail in that duty, those affected can claim.

Often, yes. Many industrial diseases, particularly asbestos conditions, only appear decades after exposure, by which time the employer may have closed down. Claims can usually still proceed against the employer's insurers at the time of exposure, and there are established ways of tracing historic employers' liability policies. Don't assume a defunct employer means no claim; it's exactly the situation these claims routinely deal with.

You generally have three years, but crucially the clock runs from your "date of knowledge": when you first knew, or reasonably should have known, that your illness was significant and linked to your work, not from when the exposure happened. For slow-developing conditions, that can be many years after you left the job. The rules are technical, so take advice promptly once you suspect a connection.

Yes, in some circumstances. It's sadly not only workers who were harmed: relatives have developed asbestos-related conditions from fibres brought home on a worker's clothes, for example when washing overalls. These secondary exposure claims are well recognised, and the employer's duty extends to people foreseeably put at risk by their operations, not just employees.

These claims turn on linking your condition to your working conditions. That means building a detailed work history, gathering evidence about the substances, tools or tasks involved, statements from former colleagues, and expert medical evidence on causation, since some conditions can have non-work causes too. We know what evidence these claims need and how to assemble it, even where the exposure was many years ago.