Our impact
Tracing an employers' liability policy can sound like an administrative task, but behind most enquiries is something serious: someone trying to find out if they can claim compensation after a workplace accident, or a long term illness such as an asbestos related disease. Our impact is measured in how quickly and reliably we can answer that question, for individuals, for the solicitors who represent them, and for the insurers who rely on us to meet their own obligations.
ELTO in numbers
41.8m
Policy records on the database
99,938
Enquiries handled in the year
89%
Successfully trace the insurer
99%+
Of the employers' liability market covered
Many of the enquiries we handle relate to conditions that can take decades to appear, such as asbestos related disease, or to accidents where an employer's business has long since changed hands or closed down. In those situations, tracing the right insurer is often the only route to the compensation someone is entitled to. Our impact is making sure that the time that has passed, or the number of times a business has changed name, is not what stands between someone and the answer they need.
A track record across the years
Over the years, ELTO has become the trusted industry service for tracing employers’ liability insurers, helping thousands of people affected by work-related illness or injury access the information they need to pursue a claim. Since its launch in 2011, ELTO has continually expanded and enhanced the Employers’ Liability Database, growing to more than 41 million policy records covering over 53 million policy years*. Success rates have remained consistently high, with 98.4% of accident inquiries receiving a successful response and an overall search success rate of 89.0% in 2025*. ELTO has also led significant industry improvements, including its successful Employer Reference Number (ERN) initiative, which helped secure regulatory change and streamline data collection across the market. As the UK’s only regulated tracing office, ELTO continues to invest in data quality, technology and customer experience, supporting almost 100,000 enquiries and more than 88,000 successful traces in 2025 alone*. Today, ELTO remains a trusted and highly valued service for claimants, representatives and insurers, while investing in the next generation of its tracing service to ensure continued success in the years ahead.
* Source: ELTO Annual Report 2025
Supporting insurers, reducing admin
Our insurer members, covering more than 99% of the employers' liability insurance market, rely on ELTO to meet their obligation to keep policy information searchable, without each of them having to build and maintain their own system. In 2024, our triage process resolved inquiries before they needed to be referred on, avoiding 3,413 referrals to individual insurers, so their teams spend less time on inquiries that ELTO can already answer.
Because every search and every policy record is held in one place, insurers also get a clear audit trail that supports their own compliance evidence when they are assessed against FCA requirements.