A business owner has been forced to pay out £50,000 after he was found to be in breach of health and safety laws.
In news which might be of interest to business insurance customers, Andrew Thompson, trading as Thomson Sandblast, pleaded guilty of sand-blasting cars using material containing banned the substance silica.
Mr Thompson also admitted conducting the blasting without allowing employees to use properly maintained respiratory equipment.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, this could have led to workers developing silicosis, a chronic, pulmonary disease.
If workers had developed this, Mr Thompson might have had to use his business insurance to pay for compensation claims.
HSE principal inspector Dorothy Shaw, said: "The HSE sets limits for exposure to workplace hazardous substances and employers have a primary duty to prevent exposure, in this case, by substituting the sand for a safer alternative which does not contain free silica."
Mr Thompson was fined £26,000 and ordered to pay £24,000 costs at Hynburn magistrates court.
Recently, the Association of British Insurers found the number of UK firms taking out credit insurance increased by ten per cent during 2007.
