Asbestos claims after death
If you have a loved one who has passed away due to an asbestos-related disease, you can make a claim for compensation on their behalf.
There are many reasons why your loved one may not have begun their own claim for asbestos exposure before passing away - for example:
- Asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma are often debilitating, so sufferers can sadly be too ill to think about making a claim.
- The fact that asbestos-related diseases usually develop decades after exposure can also discourage people from claiming. Many people worry that exposure occurred too long ago to make a claim.
- Other people mistakenly believe that they are unable to seek compensation because the companies that exposed them to asbestos are no longer trading.
- Due to the length of time between exposure and diagnosis, some sufferers do not make the connection between their disease and where they were exposed to asbestos.
However, with specialist advice, these issues can be overcome, and financial support secured.
If you have lost a loved one from an asbestos-related disease in the last three years, it is not too late to claim. Here is what you need to know about starting an asbestos compensation claim for a family member.
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Identifying where your loved one was exposed to asbestos
Contact with asbestos is most likely to have occurred at a workplace, so knowing your loved one’s employment history can be helpful when making a claim.
But if you don’t know where your loved one used to work, don’t worry – we can help.
Our expert asbestos teams have a wealth of experience when it comes to building a complete employment history of those suffering from asbestos diseases.  Our specialist asbestos solicitors can help you track down previous employers and hold them accountable, even if the company they worked for is no longer operating. We use national insurance records to trace your loved one’s former employers, and comb through Employment Liability Tracing Office data to find the former employers’ insurers.
We also have a unique database of witnesses who have indicated their willingness to speak out in support of others exposed to asbestos. We can draw on this database to find evidence of asbestos exposure in numerous workplaces across the UK.
If your loved one never worked, you still may be able to make a claim. While asbestos exposure most commonly occurred in the workplace, it is not the only place where your family member could have come into contact with the dangerous substance.
For instance, we have helped bring claims for people who were exposed to asbestos when their family member brought it home on their work clothes. We have also secured compensation for those who were exposed at school, or while playing near buildings containing asbestos as children.
Our asbestos solicitors will use all the resources at our disposal to help you identify where your family member was exposed, whether that was in or out of work.
We see difficult cases as a challenge. We brought the first ever asbestos claim in 1972, and we have been helping families bring asbestos claims ever since. We have been involved in every test case, and use our considerable experience in every claim we take on.
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Building a picture of your family member
When making an asbestos compensation claim it is important to have as much information as possible about the person who suffered from the disease.
We speak with family members, former work colleagues and review medical records to create a picture of the deceased, their history of asbestos exposure and the impact that asbestos disease had upon them and their family. We work with leading specialist medical experts who will build a picture of how the asbestos-related disease affected your loved one to support your claim for compensation.
We also offer experienced support by helping with the coroner’s inquest, which we know can be a distressing time for the family.
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