Casualty

We understand the sensitivities and present a new way of handling abuse-related claims.

Our team of specialists provide market-leading expertise across all forms of abuse-related claims under public liability, professional/officials indemnity and medical malpractice policies.

With a long track-record for advising across this area, we understand that you need an expert legal team with a fundamentally practical approach to supporting you, and victims, throughout the claims process - whether negotiating a settlement, triaging a claim (to ensure only the most realistic are defended), or handling litigation. Our work covers both UK and International.

We stand out for our holistic approach to work in this field, drawing together market-leading expertise in sexual harassment, abuse, social services, human rights, child sexual exploitation, safeguarding and employment, to advise on coverage, regulatory, compliance, investigations and inquiries, as well as crisis management and recovery actions.

Specialist industrial disease litigation expertise.

We are one of the largest specialist industrial disease litigation teams in the UK, advising on landmark coverage, duty of care, breach of duty and causation issue cases.

Our award-winning team handles claims both pre- and post-litigation as well as providing general strategic advice and updates on wider issues of the day.

We work hard to deliver excellent financial outcomes as well as strategically relevant advice. Combining some of the best legal experts with cutting-edge technology, we sit at the centre of growing mesothelioma law, delivering truly market-leading disease litigation expertise, supported by state of the art MI and fraud indicators.

International industry leaders

Our approach is collaborative and grounded in many years at the forefront of this area of work.

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Substantial claims volumes and developing law, in terms of legal duties and causation, demand a highly-qualified and experience team able to combine technical expertise, innovative legal thinking and technology-led efficient claims handling systems.

Our disease lawyers are market leaders in strategic issues such as the developing law of causation and policy coverage having acted in landmark decisions in this field for the last 40 years.

These cases include mesothelioma and other asbestos related conditions, HAVS/vibration white finger, occupational deafness, work-related upper limb disorders, stress, abuse, bullying and harassment, bladder and other oil-based cancers, leukaemia and other cancers, asthma, dermatitis, beat knee and acoustic shock.

We provide market-leading advice achieving excellent results, including involvement in law-making cases in the highest courts in the land. We take a decisive, collaborative approach, with you. We work to identify risk to your business and to provide sustainable, clear direction for the future.

We’re recognised across the industry for our experience and knowledge. We work for some of the leading insurers in the industry as well as runoff syndicates, brokers, private companies and the self-insured. We help them to make smarter decisions in relation to a range of occupational disease claims. We continue to handle the high-profile law-making cases in this field.

Handling Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) claims, the DWF Deafness Toolkit is a claims validation, assessment and anti-fraud resource, comprising a useful set of tools and calculations, ensuring accurate reserves and swift resolution on deafness claims.

DWF Deafness Toolkit

Deafness claims have quadrupled since 2008 and with the advent of a claims portal for RTA and lower value EL and PL claims, accompanied by a fixed recoverable costs regime for those claims has led to a huge surge in farmed, long-tail disease claims, particularly in relation to deafness, as Claimant legal practices and their funders look to replace falling income and profits with more lucrative work.

Do you need help with this specialist and complex area of EL disease work?

Concerned about fraud? Do you want a better process for identifying duplicate claims? Do you need a means of robustly responding to deafness claims against your business Managing the surge in NIHL claims?

The DWF deafness toolkit is designed to assist in handling NIHL claims.

Assessing claims validation, the DWF Deafness Toolkit can also be used as an anti-fraud resource. By combining a useful set of calculations and functions the toolkit can ensure accurate reserves and swift resolution on deafness claims.

Managing the surge in NIHL claims

The DWF Deafness Toolkit is designed to assist in handling NIHL claims.  Assessing claims validation, the dwf deafness toolkit can also be used as an anti-fraud resource. By combining a useful set of calculations and functions the toolkit can ensure accurate reserves and swift resolution on deafness claims.

Key features

• Determine whether the diagnostic requirements for NIHL are satisfied.
• Obtain an estimate for general damages based on the expert’s and the toolkit’s respective assessments of NIHL.
• Potentially fraudulent or exaggerated claims will be highlighted.
• Access a real time view of claims performance and outcomes.
• Findings will be backed up by robust data and MI.

Contact us to request a free demo of the DWF Deafness Toolkit

Download our information sheet

The advent of the claims portal and government reform of the personal injury claims environment has resulted in a complex decision-making process. It is vital that your claims handling team identifies which regime applies to any given claim, and the most cost-effective handling solution.

DWF Evaluate is our online decision support tool for personal injury claims handling, designed specifically for our insurance clients.

What is DWF Evaluate?

Accessible through our password-protected client extranet, DWF Evaluate is an online system for recording, managing and calculating costs on personal injury claims for motor, EL and PL cases. Designed with insurers and claims handlers in mind, DWF Evaluate helps your team ensure that the correct payment of costs are calculated on all third party personal injury claims. It allows handlers to compare different handling approaches, for instance, the introduction of a contributory negligence argument, and assess the impact of this on the overall cost of the claim.

What does DWF Evaluate deliver?

With our clear, intuitive DWF Evaluate platform, our insurance clients get the following:

• Access to the DWF Evaluate claims calculation tool for all your claims handling teams.
• The ability to generate claims costs comparisons for different claims settlement scenarios.
• On each claim – a report that summarises the key aspects of the case and the costs applicable, broken down into individual cost elements.
• A data store which allows your handlers to retrieve the claims information they have input to DWF Evaluate.

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Request a free DWF Evaluate product demo

UK and global environmental claims and regulatory expertise

We’ll be by your side at every step as an extension of your claims handling team and the immediate support of policyholders’ directors. We’re committed to focusing on managing costs and reputational damage as well as staying on top of environmental compliance obligations.

As one of the leading, specialist environmental teams, whether acting for global insurers and policyholders, loss adjusters, utilities, developers, landowners, construction and demolition companies, manufacturers, waste management operators, banks, brokers and housing associations, we specialise in advising on environmental claims, as well as defending regulatory actions by the Environment Agency.

Whether handling UK-based claims or providing a truly global service, as one of the largest and most experienced teams in the sector, we’re able to offer an unparalleled flexibility of service and price, bringing in innovative crisis response technology, market intelligence data and consultancy services.

Trusted by some of the largest global insurers and policyholders

With offices across the globe we can present a united offering, wherever you are located. Our wider commercial services team, including public regulatory and commercial litigation experts, works collaboratively with DWF’s environmental team to ensure we’re always one step ahead, anticipating your needs.

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Market leading noise induced hearing loss claims service

Our NIHL team leads the way in dealing with deafness claims across the UK and Ireland. We work hard to use our technical expertise to strike out claims and recover defense costs.

We aim to protect your interests, prevent claims leakage and provide a service that is self-funding. With tested strategies for striking out claims at an early stage, we take advantage of procedural irregularities to empower our clients to avoid the costs protection provisions enjoyed by Claimants and to recover defense costs.

What sets us apart is our commitment to innovation, however. Access to insightful reporting, using our suite of management information tools, allows us to tailor bespoke reports targeting your specific requirements. These combine to target problem areas and achieve positive outcomes and financial savings – settling payers quickly and making sure we fight the right battles.

International industry leaders

Our approach is collaborative and grounded in many years at the forefront of this area of work.

Deafness Toolkit

Deafness claims have quadrupled since 2008 and with the advent of a claims portal for RTA and lower value EL and PL claims, accompanied by a fixed recoverable costs regime for those claims has led to a huge surge in farmed, long-tail disease claims, particularly in relation to deafness, as Claimant legal practices and their funders look to replace falling income and profits with more lucrative work.

Do you need help with this specialist and complex area of EL disease work?

Concerned about fraud? Do you want a better process for identifying duplicate claims? Do you need a means of robustly responding to deafness claims against your business Managing the surge in NIHL claims?

The DWF deafness toolkit is designed to assist in handling NIHL claims.

Assessing claims validation, the DWF Deafness Toolkit can also be used as an anti-fraud resource. By combining a useful set of calculations and functions the toolkit can ensure accurate reserves and swift resolution on deafness claims.

Managing the surge in NIHL claims

The DWF Deafness Toolkit is designed to assist in handling NIHL claims.  Assessing claims validation, the dwf deafness toolkit can also be used as an anti-fraud resource. By combining a useful set of calculations and functions the toolkit can ensure accurate reserves and swift resolution on deafness claims.

Key features

• Determine whether the diagnostic requirements for NIHL are satisfied.
• Obtain an estimate for general damages based on the expert’s and the toolkit’s respective assessments of NIHL.
• Potentially fraudulent or exaggerated claims will be highlighted.
• Access a real time view of claims performance and outcomes.
• Findings will be backed up by robust data and MI.

Contact us to request a free demo of the DWF Deafness Toolkit

Download our information sheet

We’ve been advising and representing train operating companies and rail freight carriers, on the legal elements of insurance claims, since privatisation.

We understand that performance targets and margins, public scrutiny and escalating insurance claim expenditure, changing franchise periods and government review present daily pressures - as does an industry-wide commitment to delivering an excellent safety record.

Spanning England and Scotland our expertise ranges from the defence of public liability and employer's liability claims to the provision of advice and representation in relation to catastrophic injury claims. From rail regulatory advice and representation to rolling stock damage claims.

We’re recognised as one of the leading, specialist teams in the rail sector. We stand out because of our deep understanding of the practical challenges you face and the things that are important to you and the travelling public.

A leading source of legal expertise since privatisation

Our three senior rail sector specialists have over 90 years’ combined experience in advising and representing the rail industry, as well as having held in-house experience as part of British Rail’s legal team.

We understand that our insurer clients need an expert team, able to move quickly to handle Scottish claims and litigation that their own handlers may be less experienced with.

What we do

Operating as part of one of the largest insurance claims teams in the UK, we are recognised as one of the few firms to offer niche expertise and advice in all areas of Scottish claims and litigation.

With expertise ranging from a complete outsourced pre-litigation service through to specialist experience of claims fraud; Employers Liability and Public Liability; disease, motor, household and catastrophic injury claims; as well as recoveries, commercial insurance, HSE/regulatory work and fatal accident inquiries, we’re proud of our reputation for delivering the very best, expert claims and litigation service, across Scotland.

How we do it

Through engagement with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders, we have helped shaped the future claims landscape in Scotland. We stand out because of our ability to leverage data differently from all of our competitors and have pioneered the use of profiling and analytics in Scotland - leading to indemnity savings for our clients.

Most importantly, our locally-based, experienced lawyers work alongside specialists in other locations, providing a fully-integrated, UK-wide service, for all of our insurer clients.

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Our specialist lawyers have extensive experience dealing with stress and harassment claims and providing advice to a wide range of clients, including public authorities, schools & universities and PLCs.

We understand that stress claims can be technically complex, document-heavy and time-consuming.  We have extensive experience of both workload and harassment type cases. We work in partnership with brokers, insurers and the insured and are sensitive to their individual concerns.

We stand out for our deep industry understanding and sensitive, yet commercial, approach, offering a one-stop-shop for dealing with all of the issues that arise when claims are made.

We offer a full range of services, from advice on risk management and drafting policies and procedures through to defending stress claims at trial, where we can point to considerable success. We provide pre-litigation advice, on- and off-line claimant profiling and research, employment law advice (including tribunal proceedings & compromise agreements), advice on disclosure, causation, identifying and instructing expert witnesses. We work closely with both the insurer and the insured, to keep the best interests of both firmly front of mind, as well as to balance costs and challenging internal relationships.

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