How do you calculate loss of earnings from Death

thefarside

I am trying to work out how loss of earnings is caluclated for a claim. The person that i am claiming for was 27 when they died earning 12,600. Can anyone help?

Astaroth

Who is the claimant? How old is the claimant? What relation were they to the deceased?

If you want an exceptionally boring and complicated read that only gives you part of the picture you can read up on the Ogden tables here: http://www.gad.gov.uk/Publications/docs/ogdentables5thed.pdf

If you are the claimant, then apologies, this is a fairly complicated field of Law and is handled in a fairly cold way but then it is arguable that people who deal with fatality claims all day need to have a professional distance from it.

The above queries need to be answered as it will dictate how it is calculated. For example if the claimant is a 18 year old woman with the deceased being their boyfriend of 2 years but they did live together then, being realistic (but cold) the likelihood is that the claimant will not remain single from now until the day of her death and therefore there isnt a liability for the insurer to pay out for 50+ years of loss of earnings.

thefarside

The claimant was 27 at the time of the death and was the wife of the victim,

Astaroth

Any other dependants? kids? ex-wives etc?

What is claimants income? (used to judge level of dependency)

mattymoo

I used to deal with motor accident fatalities in the mid 90's. Back then the scale was as follows:-

Married - no kids. The surviving spouse would base their claim on 75% of the deceased's earnings.

Married with kids - surviving spouse claim would be based on 90% of the earnings.

The other 10 / 25% was what the deceased spent on themselves.

The multiplier was then applied. If the deceased was 60 and in good health prior to death then the multiplier would be 5 yrs - to take them up to retirement because chances are, they would have survived till retirement.

For younger people, the law takes account of the chances in life. So for instance a 25 yr old with 40 working yrs ahead of them. The multiplier would be around 30 to take into account lifes chances. This was all covered in the Ogden tables that Astoroth mentioned. They changed shortly after I left the claims field though.