A table converting a future annual loss into a single capital sum, from a mortality table and a discount rate.
Compensating a victim whose loss recurs every year means choosing between an annuity and a capital sum, and the capital route requires a capitalization table. It gives the price of one euro of annuity, the multiplier to apply to the annual loss to obtain the equivalent capital, from just two ingredients: a mortality table, which says how many years the annuity will probably run, and a discount rate, which says what one euro received in twenty years is worth today. The rate is the sensitive parameter, and setting it is a political choice dressed as a technical one: two points of difference move the award for a young injured claimant by hundreds of thousands of euros, without any medical fact having changed. France has no single official table, and several coexist, which feeds a large part of the negotiation. The problem solved is converting an uncertain, long running stream into a sum payable now, which closes the file and releases the reserve.
The table published by the Gazette du Palais in its 2022 edition uses a zero discount rate and a recent mortality table. At zero, capitalizing third party care of 30,000 euros a year for a twenty year old claimant means a multiplier above sixty, close to two million euros; a rate of 2% would bring the same capital below 1.2 million.
prix de l'euro de rente, barème Gazette du Palais