Insurance

Dorchester Primary School ensures that we do everything reasonably practicable to ensure the safety of our pupils and staff. Unfortunately sometimes Incidents do occur; if you feel that we have failed in our duty, then you have a legal remedy of raising a liability claim against us.

Sutton Council handles all liability claims on the school's behalf. If you are a third party solicitor, Sutton Council's Portal ID is G00302.

For more information on how to make a claim, please see Sutton Council's website here.

If your clients claim does not fall into the portal guidelines please send your letter of claim directly to: Claims Manager | LB Sutton Insurance Team, London Borough of Sutton, Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 1EA or email insuranceoffice@sutton.gov.uk

If you are a claimant in person please write directly to: Claims Manager | LB Sutton Insurance Team, London Borough of Sutton, Civic Offices, St Nicholas Way, Sutton, Surrey, SM1 1EA or email insuranceoffice@sutton.gov.uk including sufficient information to enable us to start an investigation into the incident including:

1. Date and Time of accident
2. Exact location of accident
3. Cause i.e. paving slab etc
4. Details of the injury
5. Details of accident circumstances

In order for your claim to succeed, it will be necessary for you to prove negligence or breach of statutory duty. Please note there is no automatic right to compensation.

A claims handler will be appointed from this department to investigate your claim on behalf of Dorchester Primary School. This will involve liaising with the appropriate department to obtain the necessary information to determine whether Dorchester Primary School, another organisation or third party has been negligent.

We may require further information from you and if this is necessary you will be given a clear indication of the information needed.

There are three possible outcomes to the claim process:

• The claim will be accepted and subject to appropriate documentary evidence a settlement will be negotiated with you.
• The claim will be rejected/repudiated if we can demonstrate that the council acted responsibly.
• Our investigations may indicate that another party was responsible and we will advice you that your claim will need to be redirected. We will try to provide their contact details to assist you in pursing your claim against them.

You may wish to consider obtaining advice from your Solicitors or local Citizens Advice Bureau.

The Council participates in a number of National and Local schemes to reduce the cost of fraudulent claims to Council Tax Payers. Information may be shared between Council Services, insurers, claim handlers, loss adjusters and other agencies. The London Borough of Sutton’s Insurance office would be grateful for this reason if you could supply your Date of Birth and National Insurance number.