I would appreciate some thoughts on the following scenario....
A sole trader (SC1)with public and employer liability insurance, carries out agricultural contracting work with another agricultural contractor(SC2) essentially as a joint venture. A farm worker is engaged as a subcontracted manual labourer by the other agricultural contractor to work on a particular job.
In a nutshell it was SC2 that was running the job for one of his customers, and the farm worker he engaged had an accident involving a piece of farm machinery and was hurt quite badly and required an operation to fix his arm, and was off work a few months but is back in full time work.
The question here isnt so much about who is responsible etc as this is currently being thrashed out in court, but (SC1) is being held fully accountable and is having to fight his corner through his insurers. Howver, the incident resulted in him going bankrupt as he could not get his liability insurance renewed. The big issue and question I have is that his insurers solicitors have now served him a bill for the £1000 excess due on the policy. Surely this would be subject to the bankruptcy, but they are insisting it is not and if he does not pay it then the insurers will not pay out and he will be personally liable?
This doesnt appear to make any sense to me at all. The rights and wrongs of whether he should be held accountable are a different issue, but he already lost his business and was forced into bankruptcy, to now be faced with a £1000 bill for the excess seems both wrong and unfair, but the solicitors have told him the bankruptcy is irrelevant.
Thanks for any light anyone can throw on this.
A sole trader (SC1)with public and employer liability insurance, carries out agricultural contracting work with another agricultural contractor(SC2) essentially as a joint venture. A farm worker is engaged as a subcontracted manual labourer by the other agricultural contractor to work on a particular job.
In a nutshell it was SC2 that was running the job for one of his customers, and the farm worker he engaged had an accident involving a piece of farm machinery and was hurt quite badly and required an operation to fix his arm, and was off work a few months but is back in full time work.
The question here isnt so much about who is responsible etc as this is currently being thrashed out in court, but (SC1) is being held fully accountable and is having to fight his corner through his insurers. Howver, the incident resulted in him going bankrupt as he could not get his liability insurance renewed. The big issue and question I have is that his insurers solicitors have now served him a bill for the £1000 excess due on the policy. Surely this would be subject to the bankruptcy, but they are insisting it is not and if he does not pay it then the insurers will not pay out and he will be personally liable?
This doesnt appear to make any sense to me at all. The rights and wrongs of whether he should be held accountable are a different issue, but he already lost his business and was forced into bankruptcy, to now be faced with a £1000 bill for the excess seems both wrong and unfair, but the solicitors have told him the bankruptcy is irrelevant.
Thanks for any light anyone can throw on this.
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