Structured Settlements of Damages Awards in Britain and Canada

Abstract

This article examines the development of structured settlements (periodic payment awards of damages for personal injury) in Britain against the longer Canadian experience of such damages. The comparison is particularly important given that many of the problems encountered in this country have also been faced in Canada, where solutions have been found to some of the difficulties that can be caused. With the assistance of the Canadian Department of External affairs the author was able to spend time in Canada reviewing the literature, interviewing academics, lawyers, insurers and, in particular, the brokers involved. The brokers interviewed arrange approximately 85 per cent of the structures in Canada. The author had previously received similar assistance from those involved in the British market, and a book on the domestic scene was later published. This article is socio-legal in nature: it describes practices and problems which have arisen within only a very limited legal framework; and it attempts to chart some of concerns of those who are intimately involved with this form of compensation, even though these issues have received the attention of neither the judiciary nor the legislature.