Unlawful death- compensation claim

Safety1

My friend was killed in a road accident last year. The solicitors have asked his wife to collate a list of additions costs she now has e.g. he done the diy and maintained her car . It’s not a topic either of us are comfortable with as it seems we are expressing his life as £’s. If anyone has gone through similar ( you have my sincerest condolences) or has any suggestions of what should be considered it would be appreciated. This is the last way his death will be able to help her and the kids for the future so I want to help her make it as realistic as possible..thanks in advance for any replies, especially on such a sensitive subject. 

Savvy_Sue

Is it her solicitors, or the other side's? I did a quick google and I think there would be suggestions out there, but you may need to wade through quite a few 'contact us and we'll advise you' sites. 

Alphatauri

Condolences to you and your friends wife.

I can appreciate why you both feel uncomfortable but this is actually a very common requirement in compensation cases. Sadly in my capacity as an HR professional I have had to provide this type of information regarding potential future earnings.

The best way to think about it is that this is your friends way of providing for his wife and children and he would want them to live the life he was planning to provide for them.

Take your time and start compiling a spreadsheet. As pp suggested try googling to see if there is a suggested list. 

My suggestion is to be methodical. Assume your friend would have lived until they were 80, what would they have done at various life stages e.g children going to university, helping children with house deposits, weddings, holidays, moving house, holidays, promotions, retirement & pension provision etc. Then think about a typical year month by month e.g. Christmas, Easter, family celebrations, holidays, diy etc.,  then a typical weekday and weekend etc. As sad as it will be think about all the times he won’t be there to help, celebrate etc.

As you can see that is a huge amount to think about and will be incredibly emotional so break it down and focus on one area at a time. A big mind map, if that works for you, may help.

As I said take your time, allocate set times to do it, if you can forget about it in between and be prepared for a lot of emotion. It is really going to bring home to you all how much you have lost, but it may also help with the grieving process.

HTH

RAS

I presume they have started with 

Earned £lots
Accrued £lots pension
Shared childcare?

A member of my family was in this situation. Ordinary bloke with ordinary job and two kids. The family member had a bit of time to live with the reality before applying for compensation.

I don't know how much it was but it bought a house, paid enough for them to be a full-time parent and lots of extras for family. 

Some payments end if she remarries.

p00hsticks

It might be worth looking at some Life Insurance companies blurb - as I recall they sometimes produce items which show how much financial imapct there woudl be on the loss of a partner, as a means of trying to sell their products.

user1977

If the solicitors are acting for the widow, aren’t they offering any advice? This is after all the sort of thing they deal with on a daily basis.

SusieT

Other than the above, try not to think of them seeing him as £'s only. The person, their personality and physically being there can never be replaced as that is sadly impossible. 
However, the compensation will be in £'s therefore they need to have numbers to work from so that the family can have the finance in place to enable them to live and have the funds to cover all the things that were "normal" to them before the tragic accident.  So, as above you/they need to think of everything that would have been paid for or now needs to be paid for so that the maximum compensation is possible -  not to replace him, but to allow the family to have funds to do the things he would have paid for had it not happened.

DullGreyGuy

Safety1 said:

My friend was killed in a road accident last year. The solicitors have asked his wife to collate a list of additions costs she now has e.g. he done the diy and maintained her car . It’s not a topic either of us are comfortable with as it seems we are expressing his life as £’s. If anyone has gone through similar ( you have my sincerest condolences) or has any suggestions of what should be considered it would be appreciated. This is the last way his death will be able to help her and the kids for the future so I want to help her make it as realistic as possible..thanks in advance for any replies, especially on such a sensitive subject. 

Its best not to think of it as putting a value on his life... that cannot be done.

A value will be put on the pain, suffering and loss of amenities to her which is effectively a value on her sorrow not his life and is general damages

Separate to that will be the special damages which are actually financial losses which most notably will be loss of earnings. What the solicitors are asking for however are not the reduction of money coming in but the increase in money going out... DIY and car maintenance can be good examples if he was a DIYer but irrelevant if he always gave the cars to a mechanic. Childcare can often be one if the couple had different shift patterns so didnt need childcare but she now does. If he was her carer then that has to be replaced by a professional... these things are really fairly discrete to each persons situation. 


One thing to be aware of... some people think that if they are say 30 and their partner brought home £50k net that their loss of earnings is going to be 45 years x £50k... its not. There are published tables of multipliers because realistically not all marriages last and in all likelihood a 30 year old woman wont stay single for the rest of her life. Particularly younger spouses are sometimes angry at how low the multiplier is.  

Brie

Sorry for your loss and that you need to help out with this.  But I'm also glad you're there to help as such a big sudden loss can create such a dreadful brain fog.

As for thing that do need to have a price tag on them....

childcare - if she's going to have a life she will need to buy some of this in.  What's the cost of a babysitter (assuming the children need this).  Find out the going rate for a Saturday evening and include that twice a month for the years til the children are old enough to look after themselves.

holidays - well she will likely decide to share a room with the children if they are very young and maybe they both would have done that.  But as they get older they would need a separate room and she would too.  And that means single supplements to be paid.  Or will she need to send them to a residential summer camp in order to get some time to herself?  Will she need to pay for someone else (grandparents? sibling?) to accompany her on a holiday to assist with kid wrangling?  

work benefits - some benefits at work assume there's a couple or one might take out something for one's spouse that she is still paying for.  Healthcare or gym memberships.

car - dreadful thought but if his car was written off or otherwise disposed of when he died how does that affect her car situation.  Does she need to buy a different car as hers is not adequate for all the things she needs to do with the kids?  I have what my OH calls a toy car and he has a honking big tank.  If that tank wasn't available I'd likely swap my car for something bigger so I can do runs to the tip or hauling stuff home from Ikea.  Or I'd need to pay someone to help with those, or rent a car/truck occasionally.

I like Alpha's thoughts above - very good idea to use a calendar as a prompt for dates/occasions/seasonal stuff.  Bank statements might also help.  

DullGreyGuy

Brie said:

holidays - well she will likely decide to share a room with the children if they are very young and maybe they both would have done that.  But as they get older they would need a separate room and she would too.  And that means single supplements to be paid.  Or will she need to send them to a residential summer camp in order to get some time to herself?  Will she need to pay for someone else (grandparents? sibling?) to accompany her on a holiday to assist with kid wrangling?  

Putting a cold claims handlers hat on... holidays are bit of a hard one to argue, remembering that she will still on paper be getting his income. Single Supplement only applies to package holidays and is less than the cost of having a second traveler and so technically thats a saving not an additional cost and for non-package holidays you are similarly saving on flights and food etc... if a friend/relative has to come to help with childcare then thats a neutral position... it'd be hard to argue that hubby was a t-total but friend drinks £300 of champagne a day on holiday and so need monies to cover that.

pollypenny

How on earth does one quantify contributions to family life, like even simple car maintenance - kneeing when and how to check tyre pressures for example - as well as doing heaving lifting, reaching up high.