Mesothelioma is a type of rare cancer that usually forms in the soft tissues found in the lung or the abdominal cavity. The major cause of the cancer has been attributed to the exposure and inhalation of asbestos. There are several different industries in which exposure of the workers to asbestos was very common in the past. This was true in the UK where there was a lot of industrialization during that period.
A lot of factories, shipyards, and other industries used asbestos either as insulation or as a fire retardant. The result is that workers who worked hard at their jobs for their country and to support their families, now find themselves afflicted with this disease. Unfortunately, there is no cure for the disease and death is sure once diagnosed. As a result, most sufferers from the disease are concerned about the quality of their life for the time they have remaining and of course their families and loved ones who they will leave behind.
The period of the time between when the worker was exposed and when they need to make a claim proved to be very difficult and challenging for some workers. Many of them could not find the former insurers of their past employers to make a claim because so much time had passed. Companies closed down and went out of business, paperwork was lost or destroyed throughout the years, and of course there may have been several different changes in the name or ownership of the companies.
In order to safeguard and provide an avenue for this class of workers suffering from the disease, some changes were made to the Mesothelioma Act. The new Mesothelioma Act 2014 was enacted on January 31st. It has some good news for those afflicted with Mesothelioma as of July 25th, 2012. The reasons are because they could not identify or locate the insurer for the company to which they were employed at the time and have not received any compensation for their condition.
In order to qualify under the amended Act, the individual will have to come forward with proof that they were exposed to asbestos in their course of work and that the exposure was negligent. The successful applicant can be awarded up to seventy five percent of the average award being granted by the courts. The cost for legal representation is projected not to exceed seven thousand pounds and will be taken out of the sum of the amount to be compensated.
The changes to the Mesothelioma Act can address this group of sufferers due to a fund or scheme that has now been put in place. How it works is that a levy has been collected from all the insurers and placed in a scheme. This pool of funds is where the money will come from to fund the awards. The necessary investigations should still be done to find the original insurers and an added incentive is the additional twenty five percent that could be awarded.
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Jeremy Peters is a writer who specialises in Legal PR, working for Black Letter PR and other clients. You can find him on Google Plus here.
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