The curse of the baby-boomer generation

Thousands more will die of asbestos poisoning in the coming decades. But many may never receive compensation

The post-war baby-boomer generation is under threat from a substance that many thought would have passed into history by the time of the millennium. Asbestos, the dangers from which were known of by at least 1931 with the introduction of the Asbestos Industry Regulations, continues to haunt a new generation of workers.

The post-war baby-boomer generation is under threat from a substance that many thought would have passed into history by the time of the millennium. Asbestos, the dangers from which were known of by at least 1931 with the introduction of the Asbestos Industry Regulations, continues to haunt a new generation of workers.

In the UK, there will be 3,000 deaths a year by 2020, with the highest risk to men born between 1945 and 1950 who would have been working in the 1960s and early 1970s - the period of greatest use of asbestos. One in 150 of all men aged about 50 in western Europe will die of asbestos-induced mesothelioma.

In the last few weeks, the spectre of a major UK industrial insurance company going into liquidation has led to fears that no compensation will be paid to these sufferers.

The difficulties that insurance companies are encountering results from two factors. Firstly, their failure to comprehend the extent of the exposure of workers in the 1960s and early 1970s. Secondly, their failure to understand the nature and extent of the indirect exposure of spouses, consumers and residents living in proximity to shipyards, asbestos factories and other places.

The insurer, Chester Street Holdings Limited, formerly the Iron Trades Holdings Limited, insured among 2,000 employers, many of whom would have exposed their workers to asbestos. The liquidation has been caused by the large number of asbestos claims. Those who were exposed pre-1972, unless their employer still exists, face recovering no compensation through the civil courts, even if they succeed in their claims for damages.

While this is the first insurance company of size to be affected by asbestos claims in the UK, it is a relatively common feature in the US. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners stated that some 500 insurance companies were in liquidation in January 1997, many of them because of asbestos claims. It is forecast that claims totalling $40-60bn will be made in the next 25 years and, as The New York Times warned, "it is hard to see how the insurance business can survive".

In December 1998, a group of claimants representing more than 2,000 South African mine workers were given permission by the House of Lords to proceed with their cases through the British courts. Their claims were against Cape plc, which only ceased asbestos mining in 1979. There is evidence that, in 1949, South African children were used to trample down asbestos stacks before shipment in order to make them more compact for storage. The advantage to the South African mine workers is that asbestosis, an extremely debilitating condition, would only merit an award of £40 to £50 under a statutory No Fault Compensation Scheme in their own country. In Britain, while the damages do not compare with those in the US the awards are likely to be between £75,000 and £300,000.

Asbestos is still present in more than one-and-a-half million buildings in the UK. After banning the importation of blue asbestos in 1972 and brown in 1980, the UK eventually moved to ban white asbestos. We were, however, slow to do so. Asbestos has been banned across the board in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Holland and in Germany, France and Italy.

Despite this, we are still left with a legacy of asbestos in buildings. Builders, plumbers and electricians may well find themselves exposed from pulling down partitions and drilling into walls etc, but the fear is that workers in factories will be led into a false sense of security by the presence of asbestos strippers brought in to remove the substance from the factory. The growth of asbestos removal firms in the 1980s and 1990s is anticipated to be mirrored in a further increase in asbestos illnesses due to the inadequate control of their work.

The future looks bleak, with deaths from asbestos exposure likely to occur well into this century. We have to look to the possibility that some of our injured people may well find their former financial redress scuppered by the difficulties within the insurance industry.

A government inquiry into the liquidation of Chester Street Holdings Ltd should be a starting point. It is better to attempt to solve the problem in its early stages before we find ourselves in the American situation.