The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its National life tables – life expectancy in England and Wales: 2021 to 2023 on 23 October 2024, detailing the trends in period life expectancy, a measure of the average number of years people will live beyond their current age, analysed by age and gender for England and Wales.
Over the last 40 years life expectancy has continued to increase, in the main due to advances in health care. However, there has been a noticeable slowing in the rate of increase since around 2011 with the Covid-19 pandemic leading to an understandable increase in mortality, particularly for older generations. This has, therefore, impacted life expectancy figures, with life expectancy reducing across the board from the pre-pandemic 2017-2019 figures.
While the differences are readily explained by the pandemic, they are sizeable in that the life expectancy at birth in England and Wales for both males and females has reduced by 26 and 13 weeks respectively. Life expectancy at birth is, therefore, now calculated at 79 years for males (previously 79.5) and 83 years for females (previously 83.2).
This does not, however, tell the full story as these figures relate to the number of years a newborn infant would live if existing patterns of mortality at the time of birth were to stay the same throughout. As already referenced, this includes the Covid-19 pandemic which the world appears to be living with, and there has been an increase in mortality since the successful vaccine programme, which has resulted in an increase in life expectancy from the 2020 to 2022 figures, which were heavily impacted by the pandemic.
Life expectancy in 2021 to 2023 includes a legacy of the pandemic but has seen an increase from the 2019 to 2021 figures of 13 weeks for men to 79.2 years of age, and 11 weeks for women to 82.8 years. These remain, though, below the pre-pandemic figures from 2018 to 2020 of 79.2 and 83 for men and women respectively.
It is, therefore, anticipated that, as we move further away from the pandemic the data will show a return to a slow year-on-year increase, at a trajectory likely in line with the post-2011 figures.
Interestingly, the numbers continue to show a regional disparity in life expectancy between England and Wales.
Welsh life expectancy at birth is 78.1 and 82 for males and females respectively, which is exactly one year less across the board in comparison to England. While the inequality is not explained, it is likely linked to the difference between socio-economic factors for ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, with those living in the most deprived areas seeing a significant decrease in life expectancy compared to those in less deprived areas[1].
The ongoing reduction in life expectancy, along with the regional inequality, brings into question the validity of the current multipliers contained within the 8th edition of the Ogden Tables.
For those unfamiliar with the tables, they are utilised to assist with calculating the lump sum compensation due in personal injury and fatal accident claims. The tables provide multipliers that are applied to the ‘here and now’ value of a future annual loss or expense to take into account accelerated receipt and mortality risks.
The latest edition of the Ogden Tables is based upon period[2] and cohort[3] mortality rates from the 2018-based projections on “a reasonable estimate of the future mortality likely to be experienced by average members of the population alive today and are based on projected mortality rates for the United Kingdom as a whole.”[4]
While these latest figures are period data only, they provide useful insight into life expectancy following the Covid-19 pandemic and raise the potential risk of, at least short-term, overinflated multipliers. However, the data should be approached with caution given that period life “expectancies tend to be lower than cohort life expectancies because they do not include any assumptions about future improvements in mortality rates.”[5]
As for utilising figures for the whole of the United Kingdom, there is a clear and substantial variation which would almost certainly impact on the Ogden Table multipliers if regionalised.
Ultimately, reliance on 2018 life expectancy figures in 2024 and beyond runs the risk of, at the very least, short-term overinflated multipliers and overly ‘generous’ awards of compensation. This also runs true for the production of whole UK Ogden Table multipliers over region-specific multipliers, especially when the data is already available.
The multipliers contained within the 8th edition of the Ogden Tables appear to be based upon ‘too generous’ projections of life expectancies for claimants without consideration of the significant regional variation data which is readily available, resulting in the potential for certain claimants who have suffered lifetime losses being overcompensated. It should, therefore, be theoretically open to personal injury practitioners and insurers to argue that the courts should depart from the standard Ogden Table multipliers and adopt reduced multipliers for claimants where appropriate, using the most up-to-date projected life expectancies as well as regional data.
However, the courts are highly unlikely to have any appetite for such arguments as attempts to deviate from the ‘standard’ approach will require specific expert evidence to justify changes to the life expectancy, something the courts have been very reluctant to allow previously.
Judges may also be unwilling to depart from the standard approach as to do so could encourage litigators to attempt to abandon the Tables completely, resulting in complex time-consuming litigation around multipliers and life expectancy in every case. Something the courts are unlikely to encourage!
Judges may also believe that departing from the Tables on the basis of a temporary ‘blip’ in the data due to the Covid-19 pandemic is too much of a knee-jerk response, particularly when the data suggests a recent upward tick in life expectancy post-pandemic, albeit still below previous levels.
Even if the courts were amendable to such arguments, they cut both ways and allowing bespoke life expectancy evidence risks ‘opening the floodgates’ to claimants arguing to the contrary, thereby resulting in an elevation of the multipliers and overall damages paid.
It is more likely than not that the status quo will be maintained until updated Ogden Tables are produced. Ideally, the Ogden Working Group will utilise these new figures and publish updated tables to factor in the revised data, to include regional variations. However, given the fact it was nine years between the 7th and 8th editions of the Tables, it remains highly unlikely that we will see this in the short term. The 7th edition used 2008-based population projection figures for producing multipliers, so the data was ten years older than that used in the 8th edition, during which there was a sequential reduction in the principal projection of period life expectancies, none of which encouraged the expedited publication of the 8th edition.
[1] ONS Health state life expectancies by national deprivation deciles, England: 2018 to 2020
[2] Period life expectancies use mortality rates from a single year (or group of years) and assume that those rates apply throughout the remainder of a person’s life. This means that any future changes to mortality rates would not be taken into account.
[3] A cohort shows the probability of a person from a given cohort dying at each age over the course of their lifetime; an age-specific probability of death
[4] Ogden Tables 8th Edition – Explanatory Notes
[5] Period and cohort life expectancy explained – Office for National Statistics
For more information, please contact: David Burn - Associate, Complex Injury Lead Lawyer
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