Insurance claims

Make a claim

If you experience damage, loss or harm in relation to yourself or your belongings and you believe your losses were caused by the Council, you may wish to make a claim for compensation.

There are three ways in which you can attempt recovery of your losses:

• You may be able to claim through your own insurer, which is often easier than claiming from the Council and should take less time to recover your losses.
• You may wish to claim directly against the Council for your losses.
• You may wish to consider obtaining legal advice on the merits or otherwise of any claim you believe you may have against the Council. A legal adviser may represent you in your dealings with the Council and seek recovery of your losses on your behalf. Please familiarise yourself with any legal costs that you may incur if you do seek legal advice.

Making a claim against us

If you have suffered personal injury, property damage or financial loss and you believe the Council to have been negligent, you will need to contact us stating:

• the full circumstances of the incident, including the date and time if relevant
• the reason why you hold us responsible
• description of the injury, property damage or financial loss
• exact location of the incident

If you wish to make a claim for compensation for any loss, damage, negligence, or hurt you believe is somehow our responsibility, then this matter will be received by our insurance team in the first instance and then referred to our insurance company for investigation, consideration of the Council’s legal position and handling of the claim. You can find contact details for the insurance team on this page.

If you have any information / photographs which you feel may assist when considering your case, please forward such information when submitting your claim.

This may include photographs of the defect or damaged property as appropriate. All originals will be returned once copies are taken.

Bradford Council arranges its motor, public and employer’s liability insurances with Zurich Municipal Insurance Company.

Our policy number is: QLA-03G032-0223

Zurich Municipal Claims Portal ID: C00650.

There is no automatic entitlement to compensation; just because an unfortunate incident has occurred does not necessarily mean we can be held responsible.

Compensation will only be paid where there has been fault on our part and it is necessary for you to prove that we have been negligent in civil law. You should be aware that, in certain circumstances, legislation provides the Council with a "special defence" to claims for damage or injury arising from the condition of the highway, if it can show it has taken reasonable steps to maintain the highway.

We have a duty to Council Tax payers to ensure that any compensation payments made by the Council are legitimate and, as such, all claims will be thoroughly investigated.

Our insurers are legally required to acknowledge any claim within 21 days and make a decision on liability within 90 days.

Claims are always investigated as quickly as possible.

The procedures relating to civil law, however, allow a period (most commonly three months) to investigate and advise a decision as to whether there has been any fault on our part (that is, to accept or repudiate the claim).

You should, therefore, receive a letter within three months accepting or rejecting your claim.

In the event that your claim is not successful, you may wish to seek legal advice on the merits, or otherwise, of your claim.

Data sharing

Please be aware we share information on claims and claimants with our insurers, the Association of British Insurers and other local authorities for the purposes of detection and prevention of fraud. You can read about this in our Insurance privacy notice. 

If the incident appears to involve another party, for instance the accident occurred on private land, involved another company such as a utility company or a contractor, your claim may be passed to that party.