LLoyds chairman Lord Levene has warned that Europe faces a USA style compensation culture, already identified by LLoyds at the start of the year as a serious issue for the future of the business.
In his speech at the LLoyds 360 Risk Debate, Lord Levene addressed the meeting by saying:
“Ladies and gentlemen: we live in an increasingly incomprehensible world. One where a Connecticut secretary suffering from the winter blues sues her ex-employers for 33 million dollars because they wouldn’t give her a desk by the window. Only in the US, right?
“Unfortunately not. This is also a world where a Canadian woman successfully sued her drug dealer for negligence and for twenty-five thousand pounds after what he sold put her in a coma.
“Perhaps most worryingly, it is a world where - in the UK - a junk mail distributor claims that a homeowner’s letterbox snapped shut, damaging her finger. She subsequently contacted a personal injury and loss solicitor who wrote to the homeowner and submitted a claim.”
The stories were used to demonstrate how the ‘Compo Culture’ has spread from the US and is already causing big headaches to UK insurance companies and others around the world.
There are real fears that litigation is suppressing growth in business worldwide, with more companies avoiding opportunities in new products and new markets which they would have otherwise embraced.
For full information on the LLoyds 360 Risk Debate click here
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