The Employers’ Liability Tracing Office can help you to find out which insurer provided Employers’ Liability cover to an organisation.
Most employers in the UK must buy Employers’ Liability (EL) insurance, which enables them to pay compensation if an employee suffers illness or injury as a result of their work.
When an employee wants to make a claim under an EL policy, they usually contact their employer or previous employer. If they are unable to contact their employer or the company has ceased trading, they must find out which insurer provided EL cover during the relevant period. This can be difficult to do – particularly as some illnesses take many years to come to light.
To tackle this issue, a group of EL insurers set up the Employers’ Liability Tracing Office (ELTO), an independent industry body that helps those who have suffered work-related injury or disease to identify the relevant insurer quickly and easily.
ELTO has created a centralised database called the Employers’ Liability Database that stores policy information for organisations with EL cover. Claimants, lawyers, brokers, insurers and employers can search the database using company names and dates.
Insurers that are members of ELTO provide information to the database about new and renewed EL policies. One of the key pieces of information that they provide is an Employers’ Reference Number (ERN). Commonly referred to as the Employer PAYE Reference, the ERN is an HMRC number for income tax and national insurance contributions that is unique to each employer.
Find a policy
If you would like to trace an EL insurer, please visit the ELTO website
