Compensations cost tourist attractions millions

[fender]

Seems people are making a mint out of the canals! Break a leg - and get your licence fee paid back over and over! Or maybe even a new boat....

 

Saw a copy of last Sunday's Telegraph and found this bit of information regarding our compensation culture and the canals. It doesnt seem to have been discussed in the canal media yet...

 

It was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph that there were "53 successful claims for "trips or falls" on British Waterways property – including many on river and canal banks – resulting in payouts of more than £350,000. One payout alone was for £50,000, awarded to a visitor who damaged a knee in a fall blamed on missing brickwork at a lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/rob...s-millions.html

 

I'm intrigued to read more on these figures, anyone know where these can be sourced from?

 

Apart from walkers and daytrippers, have there been any boaters who've sued BW?

[luctor et emergo]

It was the Sunday Telegraph?

 

Do they back up their story with corroberated facts?

[mayalld]

Seems people are making a mint out of the canals! Break a leg - and get your licence fee paid back over and over! Or maybe even a new boat....

 

Saw a copy of last Sunday's Telegraph and found this bit of information regarding our compensation culture and the canals. It doesnt seem to have been discussed in the canal media yet...

 

It was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph that there were "53 successful claims for "trips or falls" on British Waterways property – including many on river and canal banks – resulting in payouts of more than £350,000. One payout alone was for £50,000, awarded to a visitor who damaged a knee in a fall blamed on missing brickwork at a lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/rob...s-millions.html

 

I'm intrigued to read more on these figures, anyone know where these can be sourced from?

 

Apart from walkers and daytrippers, have there been any boaters who've sued BW?

 

Buried deep withing BW's accounts (page 73 of the 2008/2009 accounts), we can see that at the start of 08/09, BW had a balance sheet liability of £0.9m in respect of claims that had been lodged, but not yet paid. During the year £0.3m were paid out, and a further £0.3m of further claims were lodged

[alan_fincher]

Apart from walkers and daytrippers, have there been any boaters who've sued BW?

I was always intrigued by the threads about the boater that allegedly departed from a "defective" walk way on the top end of a Hanwell (Grand Union) lock, before being sucked through the ground paddle and sluice and into the lock, (and allegedly, I think, then being trapped under a boat ?).

 

Clearly "compensation culture" was at work there, even though those who raised it were not prepared to say why the believed the lock "defective".

 

Am I the only one who gets frustrated by seeing such things raised, but (almost) never hearing of outcomes ?

[DHutch]

Clearly "compensation culture" was at work there, even though those who raised it were not prepared to say why the believed the lock "defective".

Exactly.

- Assuming it was in suitable repair, surely, you just have to say 'urrrm, no, its not defective' (in legal jargon) and walk on.

 

 

Daniel

[fender]

I think that a lot of this stuff comes from people's carelessness but they try to shove it onto the authorities. Actually it can and does work both ways, for example there was the signal engineer's shoddy workmanship that caused the Clapham disaster of 1988, but one would expect in general the authority to be the more knowledgeable and therefore more correct.

 

A towpath would be expected to have some considerable unevenness. One walking the Llanberis path wouldnt surely expect a perfectly formed surface all the way from the town to the summit of Snowdon?? So why expect a towpath to be absolutely level?? I've always assumed that towpaths aren't perfect and so should be treated as such. Wouldnt the authorities try their hardest to prove that it was the person (the victim) who was careless, or is compensation culture now so inclined that the victim will always be believed?

[MartinC]

Buried deep withing BW's accounts (page 73 of the 2008/2009 accounts), we can see that at the start of 08/09, BW had a balance sheet liability of £0.9m in respect of claims that had been lodged, but not yet paid. During the year £0.3m were paid out, and a further £0.3m of further claims were lodged

 

I am not too sure that this represents the actual situation in respect of personal injury claims. As far as I can ascertain, BW, in common with many large organisations, operates a self insurance/reinsurance captive company (BW Reinsurance) activity provided, in their case, by Allied Risk Management in Dublin. This explains the £2.9m charge shown further up the page. With professional risk management including "stop loss" cover this is prudent management by BW.

[mayalld]

I am not too sure that this represents the actual situation in respect of personal injury claims. As far as I can ascertain, BW, in common with many large organisations, operates a self insurance/reinsurance captive company (BW Reinsurance) activity provided, in their case, by Allied Risk Management in Dublin. This explains the £2.9m charge shown further up the page. With professional risk management including "stop loss" cover this is prudent management by BW.

 

I'm sure that it does;

 

Personal injury claims

The provision relates to individuals who have suffered

a personal injury whilst on or using BW property,

and represents BW’s best estimate of the legal fees

and compensation that could be incurred.

 

Whilst they seem to have some £3m held in a captive re-insurer, presumably as an addition against claims that they expect not to pay ending up payable, the movement on the PI line is what is relevant here.

[mykaskin]

Talking to a BW man today, he said that during an assesment a hole 100mm x 100mm was found in the towpath on the Denham straight. He, and another BW employee, had to walk the full length looking for this half a brick sized hole to fill in!

[Chertsey]

Be interesting to know how many of these claims were from boaters, and how many from walkers, anglers etc. Just have an inkling (which may be totally unfounded) that boaters would be more likely to accept that there are risks and be aware of the dangers, and thus possibly less likely to jump on the compensation bandwagon. That could well be wishful thinking though.

 

A second thought is that, given the remarkable opportunities that locks etc provide for injury, that the figure isn't higher. Which I suppose is cause for celebration.

[Amduck]

It would be interesting to know how many of the claims quoted actually went to court. I suspect that many are paid out of court to prevent legal fees escalating to ridiculous proportions, knowing that the claimant will probably not be told to pay the defendant's fees if unsuccessful.

 

In other words, it's the bloodsucking lawyers that are feeding this.....and it would help if some organisation or other was able to take a few cases all the way, so a judge can tell some of these people to get a life and look where they're going. Perhaps one of the political parties would like to make an election pledge to fight a few of the more ridiculous cases from a special fund and perhaps dampen down the whole compensation culture.

[carlt]

Many of the trips and mishaps, associated with pedestrians, on the public highway are dismissed as "compensation culture" claims.

 

When I worked for the County Council the term contract was renewed and rewritten and the winning tender had extremely good footway rates which meant that we could do more work renewing footways and reinstating whole street lengths, rather than just make do and mend.

 

The number of claims dwindled to nothing, in my patch, and reduced dramatically, in less rural areas.

 

The story is a maintenance issue, not a "litigeous Britain" scoop.

[Derek R.]

Some people would seek compensation from their parents for giving them life. They see everything as a sentence, and demand fault be allocated. The responsibility for their situation and existence is someone elses.

Compensation has become part of our culture, as costs of everything has soared and insurance companies and lawyers 'legalese' have become but an extension of government taxation schemes which deploy 'risk' as something to be totally avoided and insured against at cost to the consumer.

 

Lawyers.

 

I am told the following is a true tale. It involves an American cop in the witness box being cross examined by a felons attorney seeking to undermine his credibility:

 

Q: "Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?"

A: "No Sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away."

 

Q: "Officer, who provided this description?"

A: "The officer who responded to the scene."

 

Q: "A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?"

A: "Yes Sir, with my life."

 

Q: "With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?"

A: "Yes Sir, we do!"

 

Q: "And do you have a locker in the room?"

A: "Yes Sir, I do."

 

Q: "And do you have a lock, on your locker?"

A: "Yes Sir."

 

Q: "Now why is it officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?"

A: "You see Sir, we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room."

------------

The court room exploded with laughter, and an immediate recess was called.