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Special Payments Announced for Asbestosis & Pleural Thickening Claimants

The Asbestos Victims Support Group Forum have been informed that a special payment will be made to claimants of asbestosis and pleural thickening who missed out on Government compensation due to the suspension of assessments. This is fantastic news for asbestos victims and is a campaign the Forum and its members have been running for months.

Benefit claims

Before Covid struck it took an average of 9 weeks to process benefit claims for asbestosis and pleural thickening. Since the first national lockdown some victims have been waiting in excess of 12 months, and the backlog of claims jumped from a little over 2,000 in March 2020 to over 5,300 in November 2020, and the average age of each claim had more than doubled.

Government Compensation

The difficulty that arose was due to the fact that entitlement to payment of Government Compensation under the Workers Compensation scheme is dependent on an assessment and award of industrial injury benefit and the value of the compensation award reduces with the age of the claimant. The link to age applies at the point when the condition is assessed as opposed to the date of the claim. This meant that many victims’ claims were significantly reduced.

Thanks to ceaseless campaigning by The Asbestos Victims Forum including lobbying MP’s and producing real life examples of the amount lost by individual victims this special payment is to be made to those victims that have lost out. What an amazing achievement by the Forum.

HELP

We are here to help you, so if you or someone you know has been diagnosed with any asbestos related condition, it is very important that you seek specialist legal advice without delay particularly if you have been waiting for confirmation of your benefit award before seeking help. We will explore every possible avenue with you and will act on a “no win, no fee” basis with no hidden charges and no deductions for legal fees.

For more information please call our legal experts on 0808 296 6044 or request a call back.