UK Claims Handling Guide

Last published in 2015, this new, third edition of the Guide is significantly expanded, with 13 new chapters reflecting the wholesale reform of the litigation landscape over the past few years.

The UK claims handling guide can be purchased in both hardback and Kindle editions

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An invaluable tool for claims handlers

Leading experts from our UK offices have created a practitioner’s handbook that is an invaluable tool for claims handlers. We offer advice on tactics and best practice, drawn from our wealth of experience and depth of relationships.

Our Guide’s clear and concise style gives you practical hints and tips for all key areas of claims handling. The handbook is applicable for everyday use, as well as being a reference guide for problem solving and business strategy. It aims to help readers to become more independent from, rather than more reliant on, their lawyers.

Kennedys’ Claims Handling Guide is very substantive and manages to achieve a good balance between being academically authoritative and practical to access. It’s full of in-depth knowledge and useful reminds.

Peter Smith, Claims Director, ERS

With contributions from Professor Dominic Regan and lead author, Richard West, the UK claims handling guide contains 42 substantial chapters including:

  • Guidance on all key areas of claims handling and general liability including motor, clinical negligence, health and safety, occupational disease and housing disrepair claims.
  • New chapters on assessing road traffic act (RTA) negligence, evidence gathering and negotiation, crisis management, and claims handling knowledge relating to marine, environmental, aviation, directors' and officers', motor prosecution, first party property claims and subrogation.
  • Comprehensive insights into the investigation and defence of claims concerning professional indemnity, catastrophic injury, periodical payments and credit hire.
  • A chapter on tackling fraud. It reviews this fast moving area and sets out some of the key principles required to understand and respond to fraud in liability claims.
  • Also included in this latest edition is a dedicated chapter covering the jurisdictions of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Download a preview (PDF, 479 KB)

Chapters

  1. What is the law?
  2. Negligence
  3. Nuisance
  4. Occupiers' liability
  5. Employers' liability
  6. Manual handling
  7. Quantum
  8. The Civil Procedure Rules 1998
  9. Occupational disease
  10. Health and safety enforcement
  11. Professional liability
  12. Clinical negligence claims
  13. Catastrophic injury
  14. Calculating future losses
  15. Fatal claims
  16. Periodical payments 
  17. Compensation Recovery Unit
  18. Subsidence
  19. Highways claims
  20. Sexual abuse claims
  21. Housing disrepair
  22. Road Traffic Act 1998: third-party liabilities
  23. Assessing RTA negligence
  24. Low-value personal injury claims: road traffic accidents
  25. Low-value personal injury claims: employers' and public liability
  26. Credit hire
  27. Product liability
  28. Travel
  29. Marine
  30. Environmental claims
  31. Aviation
  32. Directors' and officers' liability insurance
  33. Motor prosecutions and coroner's inquests
  34. First-party property claims
  35. Policy coverage: employers' liability and public liability claims
  36. Subrogation
  37. Fraud
  38. Evidence gathering and negotiation
  39. Crisis management
  40. Funding methods
  41. Jurisdiction and applicable law
  42. Other jurisdictions

The guide is ‘...approachable and pragmatic. My ultimate test is to ask whether such a guide helps me see the wood for the trees. Can I turn to a chapter and, within minutes, identify the core considerations? My unequivocal answer here is yes’.

Dominic Regan, Professor of Law and adviser to Lord Justice Jackson

Claims Handling Law and Practice: A Practitioner’s Guide

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Please email us if you have any queries.  

Note: Law is accurate to 1 February 2018. Following the decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union on 24 June 2016 it is possible that there will be some divergence between UK and EU law in the future.