Slip or trip claims balloon with damage to cosmetically enhanced areas
The growing popularity of cosmetic surgery is pushing up the cost of employers' liability claims, a leading insurance law firm has warned.
Solicitor Sara Fagan of Weightman Vizard's workplace litigation team said awards for relatively minor accidents doubled when claimants successfully claimed they required corrective surgery to cosmetically enhanced areas of their body damaged in an accident.
"Claims to date involve breast implants, which claimants suggest have ruptured as a result of a slip or trip at work," she said.
Fagan said the need for corrective surgery often pushed the value of claims through the five-figure barrier.
She said it also made them more likely to be allocated to the multi-track rather than being dealt with as a fast-track case, increasing legal costs.
"Although the monetary value of these claims may still not be huge, the concern is that relatively low value straightforward claims will be inflated and that this will start a new trend," she said.
"Over the next few years, with the growing popularity and greater accessibility of cosmetic surgery, insurers may face more and more claims."
Fagan said insurers needed greater awareness of the relevant issues to fight such claims.
She said, as an example, breast implant rupture cases would require consideration of whether the manufacturer was at fault, whether the original surgery was satisfactory and what pressure the implant was designed to withstand.
"It may even be necessary for insurers to consider whether there is a particular brand of implant which seems more prone to rupture than others," she said.
"Medical records should be considered to investigate whether there had been any previous complaints or problems relating to the cosmetic surgery."
Fagan said such claims were unlikely to become endemic in the short term, but that insurers should be aware of the potential they hold for increasing the cost of claims.
