About ELTO
The independent tracing office behind the Employers' Liability Database
The Employers' Liability Tracing Office (ELTO), is a not for profit organisation that runs the Employers' Liability Database (ELD). The ELD lets people with a work related illness or injury, and the solicitors who represent them, trace which insurer covered their employer's liability, even when that cover was from many years ago. ELTO also supports insurers in meeting their obligation to keep policy information searchable, so the right cover can always be found.
Our mission
We work to create a world where everyone affected by a work-related illness or injury has instant access to the information they need to make a claim.
What we do
The ELD holds tens of millions of employers' liability policy records, covering many decades of insurance history and spanning more than a century of cover. It is trusted by over 99% of the employers' liability insurance market and is free to use for individuals, solicitors and employers. Whether someone is searching for themselves, for a family member or for a client, our role is to make that search possible in one place, rather than leaving people to approach every insurer individually.
A large part of the database exists because insurers chose to build it. Millions of records were loaded voluntarily, including policies that began long before the database launched and when insurers had no regulatory obligation to supply this information. This commitment from the market is a significant reason why cover from decades ago can often still be traced today.
Why ELTO exists
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requires employers' liability insurers to keep a searchable record of their policies, so that anyone who needs to make a claim can identify the right insurer. Rather than every insurer building and maintaining its own system, ELTO was set up to provide one shared, searchable database on their behalf. ELTO is the only tracing office recognised by the FCA for this purpose, and insurers rely on ELTO membership to meet that regulatory requirement.
Employers' liability insurance became compulsory in 1969, and the insurance industry moved towards a shared tracing approach through the 1990s. ELTO was established in 2009, and has run the ELD since it launched in 2011.
Since 2023 we have also collected Employer Reference Numbers (ERN) directly from HMRC on behalf of our members. A rule change that year, ICOBS 8.4, moved that work from every individual insurer to ELTO. It removes duplicated effort across the market, and it means more policies can be found using a unique employer identifier rather than by name alone, which makes searches faster and more accurate for the people using them.
ELTO in numbers
Policy records on the database
Enquiries handled in the year
Successfully trace the insurer
Of the employers' liability market covered
How we're governed
ELTO is a private company limited by guarantee, with no shareholders and no share capital. It is governed by a board of ten directors drawn from member insurers, run off specialists, professional services and the bodies representing brokers and employers, chaired by Steven Browne of AXA Insurance UK. The board meets at least four times a year to oversee ELTO's performance, compliance and strategy.
The board agrees ELTO's programme of work each year and holds the executive to delivering it. It also sets the organisation's risk appetite and reviews the enterprise risk register, so that the risks facing a service the whole market depends on, are managed deliberately rather than reactively.
Our use of policy data and our handling of searches are subject to annual independent assurance audit, alongside a rolling programme of tracing audits and data assurance audits reported to the FCA, so members, claimants and their representatives can trust that the service meets the standards set out by the regulator.
How we protect your data
We hold policy records for almost the entire employers' liability market and handle tens of thousands of searches a year, so security is a standing priority rather than a one off project. Access to the ELD is protected by multi factor authentication. Our public facing systems and the database itself sit behind a web application firewall. We assess the security of our suppliers and delivery partners as rigorously as our own systems, and our staff complete cyber security and phishing awareness training.
Cyber risk is recorded on the board’s enterprise risk register as one of the most significant risks ELTO faces, and it is reviewed regularly rather than annually. We also keep the search itself as light as possible, asking only for the information genuinely needed to find a policy.
What we are building next
The infrastructure behind the Employers' Liability Database (ELD) has served the service well since 2011, but it has reached the limit of what can sensibly be extended. Rather than continue investing in a patchwork of upgrades, the Board decided in 2024 to rebuild the platform instead.
ELD NextGen is that rebuild: a multi-million pound digital change programme delivered in phases with published milestones, focused on modern architecture, resilience, scalability, security and the compliance capabilities our Members need. Technology partners were appointed during 2025 and the foundations for the new database have been laid. We publish regular progress updates for members as the work proceeds.
