Hannah Saxena provides a quick guide to the new 8th edition of the Ogden Tables:

Tables 1 and 2 – multipliers for loss for the rest of a claimant’s life

Tables 3 to 18 – multipliers for loss continuing for the rest of a claimant’s working life

Tables 19 to 34 – multipliers for loss only starting after the claimant’s working life

Table 35 – discounting factors for term certain for losses that are not being incurred until future date (doesn’t take mortality into account)

Table 36 – loss that is incurred for a term certain (doesn’t take mortality into account)

The 8^th edition are not as big an update as the 6^th edition of the Ogden Tables which initially brought in Tables A to D to account for contingencies other than mortality, however, there are a number of new tables, the multipliers have been changed to reflect new mortality data and the explanatory paragraphs have been updated.

The key headline is that life expectancy has gone down, for women more than men.  With almost two years taken off the female life expectancy and around a year off the male life expectancy.  This means most multipliers will be lower.  For older claimants with lifelong losses this could have a significant effect on the claim.  The latest mortality data that the 8^th edition takes into account is the 2018 data and so it doesn’t yet take into account Covid-19 and so we will only see the effects of that in the next edition.

The new tables give new retirement ages of 68 as well as 80 (for loss of earnings up to that date and loss of pension after that date) and these are very welcome and will see an end to lengthy interpolation between the tables to reach a different retirement age to 65 and 70.  There are also additional excel tables from which you can find a multiplier from any age at trial to any future age which will allow for much easier calculations for bespoke retirement ages.  Having just had a play around with them they seem user friendly and will make things much quicker, once we get used to these additional tables many of us will predominantly use these. 

There is no change to what was Tables 27 and 28 which do not take account of mortality – but these are now Tables 35 and 36.

The reduction factors in Tables A and D that account for contingencies other than mortality have been revised slightly and there is now much more complete guidance on when to depart from the reduction factors.  The terminology for different education attainments has also been simplified – now Levels 1 to 3.  The definition of ‘disabled’ has been changed and now to meet the criteria the claimant must fulfil the more restrictive Disability Discrimination Act 1995 definition rather than the Equality Act 2010 definition.

For Fatal Accidents the guidance has been simplified after Knauer  v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 9.  There are also guidance sections on pension loss calculations and on PPOs for lost earnings.

Overall the 8^th edition is a welcome and useful update to the Ogden Tables.

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