UK Asbestos Deaths Rising

The number of Britons dying from asbestos-related diseases is set to peak at around 2,000 a year during the next decade, costing the country ?8 billion to ?20 billion, the equivalent of $14.7 to $36.7 billion, over the next 30 to 40 years, according to research by the Actuarial Profession, the industry body for actuaries in the United Kingdom.

The British insurance industry is expected to be responsible for 50 percent of these costs, more than half of which will be for mesothelioma. Although mesothelioma claims are expected to rise for the next 10 years, claims for other asbestos-related diseases, such as asbestosis, will fall due to the declining use of asbestos in Britain since the 1970s. The actuaries project 80,000 to 200,000 new insurance claims over the next three decades.

Despite the fact that asbestos consumption and manufacture in the developed world has declined recently, it has continued to expand in Asia and parts of Eastern Europe. Asbestos use has fallen five-fold in North America and Western Europe since 1960, yet has increased by a similar figure in developing nations. In Asia, more asbestos is being used now than was consumed at its peak in the United States 30 to 40 years ago, the group noted.

“Asbestos is certainly not yesterday's problem,” said Julian Lowe, who chaired the working party that conducted the research. “Its effects will continue to affect insurance companies and health care providers in the West for decades to come.”

The Actuarial Profession's estimates are based on data collected from all major British insurance companies, the first time the insurance industry has offered such information to an outside organization, the group said. The wide range of projections results from the considerable uncertainty over both the number of claims and the possible levels of inflation of claim costs. The range of potential outcomes for the cost to the insurance industry highlights the difficulty in assessing, let alone pricing, latent disease claims, the authors noted.

The paper also provides an overview of asbestos-related developments in this country, arguing that the United States looms large in any discussion of asbestos, although the two countries have developed different approaches to asbestos claims and litigation. The number of deaths from mesothelioma per capita is expected to be higher in the United Kingdom than in the United States. Despite the disparity in population, roughly the same number of people will die from mesothelioma in both countries. However, due to the differences between the way people are compensated for asbestos-related diseases in Britain and in the States, the former is not expected to face such catastrophic losses to its insurance industry.

In Britain, for example, people with no detectable medical impairment typically are not compensated, although there is some evidence that this is changing. The practices of inventory settlements and consolidated trials, which are becoming more and more common in the United States, are not permissible in Britain, according to the study.

The authors also cite jury trials and forum shopping as factors leading to costlier settlements. “In the U.S., asbestos compensation cases are tried by juries, which can often lead to emotive verdicts,” the report states. “In the U.K., such cases are tried by professional judges.”

American lawyers frequently bring cases in states which are deemed to be plaintiff friendly, even though there may be only a tenuous link between the case and the state. “For example, at one point, around 20 percent of all asbestos claims filed in the U.S. were filed in Mississippi, home to less than 1 percent of the U.S. population,” according to the researchers. “In the U.K., the legal system is much more uniform and such opportunities do not exist.”

Punitive damages also are insurable in some states, while the British equivalent, exemplary damages, typically are not. Finally, the authors point to the litigious nature of American society: “Another difference is that, up to now, the U.S. has a more litigious and compensation-oriented culture than the U.K., although there is a feeling that the difference is narrowing all the time.”