Volume 1
National Health Insurance. : Report [and Appendices Vols 1-4] of the Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit Claims under the National Insurance Act.
- Great Britain. National Health Insurance Joint Committee.
- Date:
- 1914
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: National Health Insurance. : Report [and Appendices Vols 1-4] of the Departmental Committee on Sickness Benefit Claims under the National Insurance Act. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![18 December 1913.] Mr. F. W. Daniels. [Continued. under the Workmen's Compensation Act?—I have had no cases to investigate among women, hut I have had quite a number amongst the men. I cannot say that we have not, but I cannot say that we have. 14.921. Can you give us your experience of the cases you investigated among the men? Have you found it hard to deal with cases of accident ?—Tes ; the insurance companies are acting very strangely and unfairly with these men. I had a man a few weeks ago, who had been on our funds for six weeks for blood-poisoning. The firm he worked for told him to go and get as much as he could out of the insurance company, and when he had done so, they would come to his help. In one case, the insurance firm ottered a man 41. compensation for the whole business. I communicated with the firm, and put it right straight away. That was a clear case of fraud. Last week I had a case of a man suffering from blood-poisoning, and the insurance company got him to sign for 7s. 6d. sick pay in full settlement of all claims. The man is still ill, and is likely to be ill for the rest of the year. Insured persons are being imposed upon in these occupations, very badly indeed. 14.922. Do you get to know of these cases ?— Certainly. 14.923. Do you take up these cases of accidents for your members ?—Certainly. I have contested over 30 claims for members, and in every one I have succeeded up to date. 14.924. Among the women you classify as factory hands, you would have many in the hardware trades, working amongst dangerous machinery, and do you find many small accidents among them ?—4,000 out of the 11,000 are probably engaged in the hardware trade, which is heavy work. Those are the risky cases. 14.925. Do you find any difficulty in getting them to tell you that there has been an accident ?—Unfor- tunately, I had about two cases of that kind, where they have tried to suppress it. 14.926. They know that you will take up the cases for them ?—Certainly ; we offer to find them free legal advice, and assistance in these cases. The parent society offers them that. 14.927. Can you tell us anything about your laundresses? Are they working in hand or steam laundries r—Steam, chiefly. 14.928. Is a large proportion of them married women ?—No, they are mostly single girls. 14.929. Do you know what type of claim they come to y:>u for ?—They have been very fair. I think that you will find the figures for the laundry people are low. We have three or four laundries in Birmingham. It has been a very fair risk, indeed. 14.930. Do you think that you have a dispropor- tionate number of married women compared with the number of married women in the laundry trade generally ?—Apparently; I cannot speak with cer- tainty, 14.931. Tou are sure that there are few married women among them ?—Tes. 14.932. As this is a small number to generalise upon, we ought not to take your figures as representa- tive of the figures in the laundry trade ?—I quite agree. 14.933. As to your domestic servants, do you know whether they are general servants in houses where only one is kept ?—About one half of them are. About half are servants in larger houses. 14.934. What do you say about your domestic servant experience ? Was it higher or lower than you had before ?—I had no experience of them as a class before, so I could not form any opinion. 14.935. It is not very low as compared with the rest of your experience ?—That is so. 14.936. Do you attribute that to the fact that you have a rather large proportion of the lower class servants ?—I could not say definitely. I have not thought of it from that standpoint. 14.937. Are your chocolate workers from Bourn- ville ?—Tes, and there are other firms. I am some- what surprised at the chocolate workers being so low, because we find that among the people living in Bournville, who are in other societies, the sickness risk is very heavy. It is a clay subsoil, and they are subject to asthma, bronchitis, and similar diseases. I consider these figures extremely good, and very much better than I anticipated. 14.938. Are they better paid than most of your other women chocolate workers ?—I should not say that they are better paid than half of those I have tabulated as factory workers, but they are much better paid than the hardware workers. 14.939. What about their age distribution ? Are they mostly young ?—The chocolate workers are mostly young people. I do not think that they have married women at all, at any rate, at Cadbury's. 14.940. Tou said that you have chocolate workers from other firms ?—That is so. 14.941. But you think on the whole that they are unmarried and fairly well paid ?—That is so; the factory hands and charwomen are nearly all married women. 14.942. What about outworkers ?—I cannot speak very well about them. 14.943. I see there are only 98 ?—That is so. 14.944. Can you give us any details about the kinds of claims made by dressmakers ? What do they chiefly claim for ? Is it bronchial and chest troubles ? —Tes, and anaemia. They are chiefly dressmakers from the shops in Birmingham. 14.945. Are they chiefly working in rather small and badly-ventilated workrooms ?—Tes ; I attribute the heavy claims to that. 14.946. What steps do you take when women members marry, to inform them of their options under section 44 ?—I have a circular letter, and I also send them a circular, detailing exactly the position in which they are placed.* Our trouble is that a good many of them do not advise us when they are married. 14.947. Do they conceal the fact altogether, and go on under their maiden names ?—They do not change their names, or give us notice of it, until they are taken ill, and then we find it out . 14.948. Do they go on working ?—Tes, those I am alluding to would continue working. 14.949. Are they the people you would want to suspend ?—No. 14.950. When you know that they have married, what sort of proof do you accept from them, that they are going on working, if they do not want to be suspended under section 44 ?—Simply an intimation that they are returning to work. 14.951. Do you find any difficulty ab< >ut the question of their going back to work, or does that work smoothly ?—It is getting a little troublesome. They seem to have got to know what they can and cannot do. Even when they are intending to go back to work, they will not tell you, except in extremely indefinite language. They say they may go back. Where are you then ? * Copij Married Women's Letter. Dear Madam, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your card, together with your notice thai you are leaving work to get married. Under the Insurance Act married women have two options :- 1. They may become voluntary contributors at 3d. per week, in which case they would get medical be neiits, reduced sickness benefits, and disable- ment benefits; or 2. They may discontinue paying, and thus cease to be I would, however, point out that in the latter case, if your husband should die, and you resumed work, your membership would continue, and all benefits be payable as though there had been no break in your membership. You would, however, require to resume work or pay up arrears within one month of his death. Will you kindly let me know which of the above two options you desire to avail yourself of. Also please answer the following questions :— 1. What date were you married ? 2. Date of your husband's birth ? 3. Husband's Christian name? 4. Is your husband a British subject ? The Commissioners require the above particulars to be given at once, but at the outside within one month. Yours faithfully,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21361125_001_0548.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
