Ogden tables - seventh edition published today

The seventh edition of the Ogden tables has been published today, showing a modest rise in multipliers.

The seventh edition uses UK life expectancy data from 2008 from the Office of National Statistics which, generally, shows improvements in life expectancy when compared to the 2004 data used in the sixth edition (published in 2007).  Use of this newer data causes whole life multipliers to increase for both genders and across all age ranges. The average increase is over half a point. The actual increases are shown in the chart below, but please refer to the edition of the tables for the precise figures.

A significant presentational change is that the five per cent spread of notional discount rates in the tables moves from 0% to 5% to -2% to 3%. This does not and cannot itself in any way affect the statutory discount rate of 2.5%.

The underlying life expectancy data is updated on a two-yearly basis every other autumn, so in very short order after today's publication of the seventh edition of the tables the ONS will publish the 2010 survey data. It might therefore be arguable that that will render the data in the seventh edition somewhat out of date fairly quickly after its publication (even if the likelihood is that any improvements in life expectancy from the 2008 to 2010 data might be fairly modest).

The expected data from ONS, coupled with other changes in the legal and procedural background to resolving serious bodily injury claims, is likely to mean that a further edition of the tables, the eighth, could be made available in perhaps twelve to eighteen months. The Chairman of the Working Party clearly indicates as much in his foreword to today's new seventh edition:

It was decided that, due to the passage of time and the changed circumstances since the Tables were first produced, the text of the Explanatory Notes will require a substantial re-write in order to bolster its usefulness to practitioners. Not only is there a need to change the language, but the effect of other decided cases has made this a task of importance. The intention of the Working Party is to accomplish this re-writing in the next (eighth) Edition, which will rely on the further updated mortality projections due to be produced by the Office for National Statistics later in 2011. It is hoped that the eighth edition will be available in autumn 2012.

For more information please contact BLM head of policy development Alistair Kinley (alistair.kinley@blm-law.com).