Indirect victims (losses of relatives)
Relatives of a direct victim who has died or been seriously injured, who obtain compensation for their own emotional harm and economic losses arising from the harm done to the victim.
Bodily injury does not stop at the injured person: it affects relatives, whom French law compensates broadly as indirect victims. In case of death, they obtain compensation for their emotional harm, whose amount depends on their relationship to the deceased and how closely they lived together, as well as for their economic loss, that is, the loss of the income the deceased devoted to the household, and funeral costs. When the direct victim survives with serious disabilities, relatives may obtain compensation for emotional harm and for an exceptional non-pecuniary loss linked to the upheaval in their living conditions, as well as for lost income when they stop working to care for the victim. For the liability insurer, a single accident thus creates as many claimants as there are relatives, and the economic loss of a household deprived of its main income can exceed that of the victim.
On the 2024 death of a father of two who provided 70% of household income, the motor insurer compensates the emotional harm of the widow, the two children and the deceased's parents, then the household's lost income, capitalized until the children come of age or finish their studies.
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