Posted By Ian-Edwards Hi Raymond Insurers are generally pretty poor at carrying-out Health & Safety surveys. It's often luck of the draw with some insurers being more focussed than others. Commonly, regular H&S surveys will be reserved for larger businesses or those with problem claims experiences. The surveys are often "fleeting" and are over and done with in a couple of hours, when realistically, a few days would probably be more appropriate to cover all aspects. Finally, these surveys can often be biased towards claims defensibility, rather than general accident reduction. In the cold light of day, insurers are likely to have a very different (almost adversarial) agenda to the HSE. As successful HSE prosecutions usually spell the death knell for a successful claim defence. Good idea in theory, though...

Posted By Glyn Atkinson In ten years of insurers involvement with renewals or audits of premises, I have only ever dealt with qualified investigators or auditors. The insurers are very careful usually with the potential payouts to gain profit from premiums ! They usually have eyes in the back of their heads as well - damned clever breed !

Posted By Stuff4blokes Just to add to Phil's comments, Employer's Liability insurance is regulated by law and whilst some of the more proactive insurers will carry out "surveys" and offer advice on H&S issues and claims defensibility, in reality the only sanctions available to the underwriter against "poor employers" are mid-term cancellation (extremely rare), refusal to offer renewal or increased terms at renewal. Public liability insurance is less regulated and therefore conditions etc can be applied requiring improved risk control. Insurers have no enforcement powers but the better ones certainly encourage, recognise and reward good risk management. However, they are commercial organisations, with shareholders who expect them to produce profits and the effort they expend on "survey activity" is a matter for the business stream managers. As a consultant who earns a proportion of my fees from the outsourcing of that work, I'd love to see much more! Whenever I have met other consultants who do similar work I have found them to be professional and committed individuals, well qualified and experienced, able to differentiate between trivial and significant risk and with a good understanding of business pressures.

Posted By Raymond Rapp Many insurance companies simply send out questionnaires for the customer to complete. I have seen some examples and they range from simple to quite exacting. It is clear that brokers often do not have a proper understanding of the legal requirements as evidenced by their comments following receipt of the questionnaire. However, it does nonetheless force companies to provide statutory requirements and evidence it to the insurer.