Employers’ Liability Tracing Office

The Employers’ Liability Tracing Office (ELTO) aims to help identify the relevant Employers’ Liability insurer quickly and efficiently. ELTO is an independent, not-for-profit company set up to provide claimants and their representatives with quick and easy access to a database of ELI policies.

Employers’ Liability Insurance (ELI) covers employers against liability for injuries or disease sustained by employees while at work. Most claims are brought against current or recent employers but problems can arise when a former employer and insurer needs to be traced.

This is particularly common in the case of "long-tail" industrial diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma when symptoms take some years to develop.

ELTO has built and will maintain a complete electronic database of all new and renewed ELI policies. ELTO is not a compensatory body but provides a tracing service. Currently over 95% of the ELI market is already signed up as members of ELTO.

To help with this tracing new rules from the FSA require insurers and brokers to collect additional information about employees.

As of April 1^st 2012 this is mandatory although some insurers and brokers have been collecting this information for the past year.

The additional information required is the Employer Reference Number (ERN) of your employees and any employees of subsidiary companies. The ERN is also known as the Employer PAYE Reference. When employers register their first member of staff the HMRC issues an ERN unique to every employer.
 
If you need any help identifying your ERN please just give me a call.