What is the potential of compensation funds for addressing COVID-related personal injury?

Our plain-English summary of What is the potential of compensation funds for addressing COVID-related personal injury?, by J. Knetsch, K. Watts (The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance. Issues and Practice, 2023).

The study

• Authors: J. Knetsch, K. Watts
• Journal: The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance. Issues and Practice
• Published: 2023:1-22
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present new challenges at the frontiers of social risk. Its significant societal impact has prompted the consideration of alternative frameworks like compensation funds to better allocate the risks and impacts of COVID-related injury. Although there has been discussion about the potential of alternative liability structures for vaccine-related injury, there has been less analysis of the right way to compensate other types of injury, such as long-term illness, disability and death, associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In France, a universal compensation fund for COVID-19-related injuries, designed similarly to asbestos-related schemes, was considered by the parliament. With an eye on scientific knowledge of the best practice in the development and operation of compensation frameworks, this paper analyses the design of such funds in Europe as applied to COVID-19 injury and considers the position of compensation funds in relation to tort law, private insurance and social security models.

© The Geneva Association 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

In plain English

This article is a legal and policy analysis, not a medical study. The authors collected no original clinical or asbestos-exposure data. They examined whether no-fault compensation funds could compensate COVID-19 personal injury in Europe, especially France. A first French bill was submitted in May 2020 by 13 senators and rejected on 25 June 2020. A second, started in January 2021 by 36 opposition members of the National Assembly, was promptly rejected. Objections concerned unclear scope, financing, and unequal treatment of victims. One parliamentary report quoted EUR 16 billion, based on 300,000 eligible individuals with average damages of EUR 35,000–40,000. The authors wrote that these projections seem highly underestimated. Meanwhile, the government added COVID-19 to the list of occupational diseases. The authors also compared funds with tort law, insurance and social security. Asbestos appeared only briefly. The abstract said a French COVID-19 fund considered by parliament was designed similarly to asbestos-related schemes, and Belgian and Dutch asbestos funds were cited as examples paying fixed amounts. The authors concluded that applying the fund model to general COVID-19 loss is potentially fraught with difficulty and unmanageable expense.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Legal and policy analysis (comparative law) of compensation fund design; no original clinical or exposure data collected
• Who was studied: No study population. The article analysed compensation fund frameworks in Europe, with special attention to French legislative proposals of 2020 and 2021.
• Exposure: Personal injury from COVID-19 infection. Asbestos was not studied; asbestos-related schemes and asbestos compensation funds were mentioned only as comparisons or examples.
• Main results:
  • In May 2020, 13 members of the French Senate proposed a COVID-19 victims' compensation fund.
  • The Senate bill was rejected on 25 June 2020.
  • A second bill, started in the National Assembly in January 2021 by 36 opposition members, was promptly rejected.
  • One parliamentary report estimated a cost of EUR 16 billion. It was based on 300,000 eligible individuals with average damages of EUR 35,000–40,000.
  • The authors considered these financial projections and victim counts highly underestimated.
  • While the Senate bill was being analysed, the French government included COVID-19 in the list of occupational diseases.
  • Opponents in the debate argued that full compensation for work-related COVID-19 would be hard to justify when patients with work-related cancer receive only partial compensation.
  • The article's abstract described a French COVID-19 compensation fund considered by parliament as designed similarly to asbestos-related schemes.
  • The Belgian and Dutch asbestos compensation funds were cited as examples of ad hoc funds that pay a fixed and invariable amount of compensation.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that a compensation fund is not a panacea. In their view, applying this model to general COVID-19-related loss is potentially fraught with difficulty and unmanageable expense.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Alternative Liability, Tort.

Related studies

• Product liability forecasting for asbestos-related personal injury claims: a multidisciplinary approach — E. Stallard (2001)
• Criminal investigation follows report on asbestos compensation fund — B. Burton (2004)
• Mortality rates from asbestos-related diseases in Italy during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic — L. Fazzo, E. Grande, et al. (2023)
• Missed opportunities to counsel patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma about causation and potential compensation — W.G. Kuschner, R. Varma, et al. (2012)
• Biopersistence and potential adverse health impacts of fibrous nanomaterials: what have we learned from asbestos? — V.C. Sanchez, J.R. Pietruska, et al. (2009)
• Asbestos-related radiographic findings among household contacts of workers exposed to Libby vermiculite: impact of workers' personal hygiene practices — T.J. Hilbert, A. Franzblau, et al. (2013)

Browse return to medical research.