If someone dies while making a claim
If someone dies while making a claim and they were eligible for compensation from IBCA, we'll pay compensation to their estate. This applies whether they died before or after accepting an offer.
Tell us someone has died
Contact their claim manager to let us know. If you do not have their details, call us on 0141 471 8886 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm, excluding bank holidays).
We’ll guide you through the next steps.
Dealing with the claim on behalf of their estate
To deal with the claim on behalf of their estate, you need to be their personal representative. This means you have legal responsibility for their money, property and possessions.
To become a personal representative, you'll need to apply for probate (or confirmation in Scotland).
You can find out more about applying for probate or confirmation.
You can also find out how compensation may affect Inheritance Tax.
What happens to their claim
How this works depends on how far their claim had progressed when they died.
If they died before they accepted a compensation offer
Their existing claim will be closed. This is because we work out compensation for someone who has died in a different way.
For example, for an infected person who has died, we'll use the time period from the year they were infected to the year they died to calculate the compensation amount, rather than a time period based on the number of years they were expected to live in good health (known as ‘healthy life expectancy’).
As their personal representative, you’ll need to start a new claim on the estate’s behalf.
You can register your intent to claim online.
After you’ve registered, a claim manager will get in touch with you when they are ready to start your claim. They will help you gather information or documents you need and explain what compensation the estate is entitled to.
You can find out more about making a claim when someone has died.
If you’re claiming for an affected person who has died
If they were the parent, partner, child, sibling or unpaid carer of an infected person, you can register your intent to claim now.
We are not processing these claims yet, but we'll contact you when the service opens to this group.
If they died after accepting an offer or receiving payments
We'll pay any remaining compensation as a single payment to their personal representative. This applies whether the person who died chose to receive their compensation as a single payment or monthly payments over 5, 10 or 25 years.
How we work out the remaining amount depends on the choices they made when they accepted their offer.
If they were not part of a support scheme, or they chose to stop support scheme payments
We'll work out the remaining amount by taking their full original compensation amount and deducting any payments they had already received from us.
If they chose to keep support scheme payments alongside compensation from us
Their support scheme payments will stop. To work out whether any more compensation is due, we'll compare:
- the IBCA compensation they would have received for future care and future financial loss
- the total support scheme payments they received between 31 March 2025 and the date they died
If the IBCA compensation amount they would have received is higher, we'll pay the difference as a single payment.
If the amount of support scheme payments they received is higher, the estate will not receive any more compensation.
What happens to their information
We'll store the information from their claim securely. We may use it if their personal representative makes a claim on the estate’s behalf.
Read our privacy notice to find out how we use personal information.