I will try to keep this brief.

I am currently claiming for a house fire in which I lost everything, the claim is now 18 months old now after many delays I have movement and an agreement to settle.

My question arises that one of the delays is that the insureres were informed by the local authority that I was in prison, TO CLARIFY I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO PRISON.

Now I have to writee to the local authority, the insurer and the insurers loss adjusters to get a subject access of all the data. Make a complaint to the data registrar and hopefully win and then what.

Can I sue the local authority for defamation, my insurer for perpetuating this to their third party etc.

Who is liable or do I take it on the chin.

Oh my insurer has provided a name of an individual in the local authority who passed them the information

For libel you would sue ANY party that published the defamatory allegation against you. It is not just the individual that first made the mistake, it is also anyone else that has further published this defamatory information, without checking its veracity.

What I would suggest that you do is to get a solicitor to write the relevant parties, stating that you intend to issue legal proceedings, unless a satisfactory settlement can be reached to satisfy the damage done to your reputation.

The danger with libel cases I believe, is that even if you took it to court and the judge awards you £x, you might not get costs, so could end up without much or even owing money. This is why sometimes people don't bother. This is the reason for writing to the people involved and trying to resolve outside of the courts.

The legal route is a good option, I have little dealing in litigation outside insurace and can't offer any further input.

From my perspective. I'm not sure what you are wanting to achieve? (money? - nothing worng with that) , I'm not sure if asking for files etc is going to muddy the water. If insurance company have been provided wrong info, whilst wrong, their intentions were probably correct.

Also not sure what you mean by third parties, if we are talking about their suppliers, then the info was passed for the purpose of investigation only, probably not to make insinuations against you. If they have passed this info to outside parties not relevant to the claim, then they have breached data protection, you then have a case with the information commisioners office. Don't expect a lot from any file requests, you are only entitiled to the personal data held about you, not the full file. If, for example there is a page of notes, if there is nothing that can link it to you i.e. name and address, then it does not get sent. You then also need to prove how your reputation has been damaged, and in what capacity - i.e. business loss.

Altenatively, you can make a formal complaint to ask the insurer if they have dealt with this correctly without undue delays etc, I doubt it if we are talking about 18 months to settle. You can always approach the FOS or Lloyd's PMA whoever their regulators are.

Good luck, 18 months is way too long for any claim, regardless of enquiries.

have u got all your loss back?