Official Statistics

MOD common law compensation claims statistics 2024/25

Published 27 August 2026

This bulletin relates to claims brought against the Ministry of Defence for compensation at common law (other than those arising out of contract disputes). These statistics do not include compensation awarded under the MOD’s no fault schemes - the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and its predecessor the War Pension Scheme.

Summary

• Total expenditure on compensation claims and associated costs in Financial Year 2024/25 (excluding those arising out of contract disputes) was around £157M, including claimants’ legal costs. This is exclusive of MOD legal costs and staff costs.

• The total number of new claims brought against MOD was 35,696. This represents a 52% increase on FY2023/24. The main reason for this is a further increase in Service noise-induced hearing loss claims.

• 2,046 Service Personnel Employer’s liability claims were settled in 2024/25. Expenditure on Service Personnel Employer’s liability claims was £103.4M.

• 126 Civilian Employer’s Liability claims were settled in 2024/25. Expenditure on Civilian Employer’s liability claims was £20.2M.

• 134 Public Liability claims were settled in 2024/25. Expenditure on Public Liability claims was £4.6M.

• 59 Clinical Negligence claims were settled in 2024/25. Expenditure on Clinical Negligence claims was £18.6M.

• 391 Third party motor claims were settled in 2024/25. Expenditure on third party motor claims was £4M.

• Expenditure on structured settlements/periodic payments was £5.5M.

• 369 claims were settled by delegated authorities in 2024/25. Expenditure for delegated authorities was £1M.

Expenditure is not directly comparable to the number of claims settled in the year. Expenditure figures reflect payments recorded during the financial year and may relate to claims at different stages of the claims process, including open and closed claims.

• The highest value claim that was settled in 2024/25 was a clinical negligence claim in which the MOD was a co-defendant alongside SSAFA. The claim related to a serious brain injury sustained at birth by the son of a service person in a German hospital in 2000. The total paid out on this claim (in both damages and claimants’ costs) was £6.4M. Payments were made across multiple financial years, with £0.4M paid in 2024/25.

Background Quality Report: Background Quality Report

Introduction

When compensation claims are received they are considered on the basis of whether or not the Ministry of Defence has a legal liability to pay compensation. A payment of compensation in circumstances where the Department does not consider that a court would find it liable would count as an ex gratia payment; the Department is not empowered to make such payments without Treasury authorisation with the exception of claims arising from low flying. Treasury approval is not frequently sought or given.

The amount of compensation paid is determined by common law principles which broadly take account, as appropriate, of such factors as an individual’s pain and suffering, degree of injury, property losses, past and future financial losses and level of care required. Advice is sought where necessary from the Government Legal Department, and a range of specialist Personal Injury Law firms for cases brought in England and Wales; the Crown Solicitor’s Office for cases brought in Northern Ireland; and Morton Fraser MacRoberts Solicitors for cases brought in Scotland. Counsel are also consulted on high profile or complex cases or where a point of law needs to be explored. In line with Civil Procedure Rules the majority of cases are settled through negotiation. However, this bulletin does not distinguish between compensation ordered by a court and compensation paid pursuant to a negotiated settlement.

Section 1: Common law compensation claims made against the MOD

Compared with 2023/24, the number of new claims rose by over 50% to 35,696 in 2024/25. The number of Service noise-induced hearing loss claims has more than doubled. It should be noted that the figures include requests for records relating to potential noise-induced hearing loss claims and instances where claimants have instructed different solicitor firms. In such cases, each notification is recorded separately within the reported totals.

Table 1: New claims, by category

	FY20/21	FY21/22	FY22/23	FY23/24	FY24/25
Total new claims brought	3,506r	5,762r	7,076r	23,479r	35,696
Employer’s Liability	1,997r	3,844r	5,317r	13,990r	33,726
Service	1,761r	3,574r	5,120r	13,793r	33,422
Noise-induced hearing loss	1,550r	3,271r	4,716r	13,409r	32,707
Non-freezing cold injury	68r	146r	238r	183	219
Asbestos related	4r	2r	3r	2r	310
Other	139r	155r	163r	199r	186
Civilian	236r	270	197r	197r	304
Noise-induced hearing loss	33	28	27r	35r	128
Asbestos related	102	112r	78r	77r	95
Other	101r	130r	92r	85r	81
Public Liability	342r	433r	339r	8,087r	279
Personal Injury	77	79r	93r	63r	81
Motor	79r	105r	77	77r	80
Low flying	86	71	34	57	48
Maritime	9	4	5	10	9
NI Legacy	48r	121	79	77	6
Other	43r	53	51	7,803r	55
Clinical negligence	100r	176r	55r	97r	49
Third party Motor	562r	806r	903r	870r	1,186
Delegated Authorities	505	503	462	435	456
Area Claims Offices	454	460	418	374	413
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	51e	43e	44e	61e	43e

Compiled by: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

There have been some updates to historical figures, please refer to Background Quality Report for more information.

Section 2: Settled Common law compensation claims notified

In this Section, the term settled relates to claims where damages have been paid to the claimant and all associated legal costs have been paid. Payments relating to a claim may be made across more than one financial year and, therefore, the financial year in which a claim is recorded as settled is not necessarily the year in which all associated payments were made. In total 3,125 claims were settled in 2024/25 either out of Court or by Court verdict. This category does not include any claims which were discontinued, struck out by the Courts, or repudiated by the Claims Unit.

Table 2: Settled claims, by category

	FY20/21	FY21/22	FY22/23	FY23/24	FY24/25
Total claims settled	2,517r	2,480r	3,145	3,705r	3,125
Employer’s Liability	1,126	1,253r	2,148r	2,905	2,172
Service	914r	1,041r	1,957r	2,769r	2,046
Noise-induced hearing loss	685r	853r	1,721r	2,601r	1,942
Non-freezing cold injury	115r	65r	95	67	28
Asbestos related	1r	4r	2r	2r	-
Other	113r	119r	139r	99r	76
Civilian	212r	212r	191r	136r	126
Noise-induced hearing loss	17	17	18r	17	8
Asbestos related	88r	95r	89	57r	76
Other	107r	100r	84r	62r	42
Public Liability	618r	258r	137r	116r	134
Personal Injury	49r	95r	53r	37r	29
Motor	57	71r	37r	40r	46
Low flying	44	44	24	14r	28
Maritime	8	7	1	7	8
Iraq Private Law	417	1	1	-	-
Afghanistan Private Law	13	-	-	-	-
NI Legacy	9r	21	9r	8	15
Other	21	19r	12r	10r	8
Clinical negligence	21r	22	19r	43r	59
Third party Motor	348r	424r	246r	226r	391
Delegated Authorities	404	523	595	415	369
Area Claims Offices	354	482	551	354	327
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	50	41	44	61	42

Compiled by: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

There have been some updates to historical figures, please refer to Background Quality Report for more information.

Section 3: Compensation claims expenditure

This table includes damages and other costs, such as claimants’ legal costs. It does not include the MOD’s own legal costs, including fees paid to MOD-instructed lawyers and disbursements such as Counsel and expert fees, as well as costs incurred by the MOD’s current contractor in handling non-litigated cases, all of which are borne by the MOD.

The expenditure figures do not represent the cost of claims settled during the year, as payments may relate to a broader range of claims than those settled during 2024/25. The Personal Injury Discount Rate during FY2024/25 remained at minus 0.25% in England and Wales, minus 0.75% in Scotland and minus 1.5% in Northern Ireland.

Table 3: Expenditure on claims, by category

	FY20/21	FY21/22	FY22/23	FY23/24	FY24/25
Total expenditure £/million	124.4	135.5	160.1	180.2	157.2
Expenditure by MOD Claims Unit and claims contractors	123.2	133.9	159.0	179.0	156.2
Employer’s Liability	94.0	107.2	127.4	151.6	123.6
Service	73.2	83.6	107.1	135.5	103.4
Civilian	20.8	23.6	20.3	16.2	20.2
Public Liability	17.9	8.7	11.8	8.4	4.6
Clinical negligence	5.0	11.4	13.3	11.5	18.6
Third party Motor	2.7	2.5	2.0	2.6	4.0
Structured settlement or periodic payments	3.7	4.1	4.5	5.0	5.5
Expenditure by Delegated Authorities	1.2	1.6	1.1	1.2	1.0
Area Claims Offices	1.1	1.5	1.1	1.1	0.9
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	0.1	0.2	~	0.1	0.1

Compiled by: Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy Common Law Claims & Policy

Glossary

• Civilian refers to all MOD civilian employees including members of the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS) and Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) as well as cadets.

• Delegated authorities include the Area Claims Offices (ACOs) overseas and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO).

• Expenditure includes damages and other costs such as claimants’ legal costs. It does not include MOD legal costs which comprise of fees to MOD instructed lawyers and disbursements such as Counsel and expert fees as well as costs incurred by the MOD’s contracted claims handlers, all of which are borne by the MOD. Expenditure is based on recorded payment information and is not limited to claims settled during the financial year.

• Settled claim relates to a claim where damages have been paid to the claimant and all associated legal costs have been paid.

Further Information

Revisions

There are no regular planned revisions of this Bulletin. Any substantial changes which are discovered to be necessary will be made to the online version of the Bulletin. Corrections to the published statistics will be made if errors are found, or if figures change as a result of improvements to methodology or changes to definitions. When making corrections, we will follow the Ministry of Defence Statistics, revisions and corrections policy. Corrections which would significantly alter the statistics will be corrected as soon as possible, by reissuing the publication.

Symbols

• e estimated figure based on the number of settled cases

• r revised figure, data is routinely revised as a result of ongoing validation and updates received from contractors

• – zero

• ~ Less than £50,000

Contact us

Claims Point of Contact – Head of Common Law Claims and Policy

Email: SPODJEP-ClaimsGeneral@mod.gov.uk

Statistical Point of Contact: Head of Analysis (Tri-Service)

Email: Analysis-Publications@mod.gov.uk

If you require information which is not available within this or other available publications, you may wish to submit a Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the Ministry of Defence.

If you do not wish to correspond by email, our postal address is:

Directorate of Judicial Engagement Policy – Common Law Claims and Policy Ministry of Defence, Main Building
Floor 3 Zone I
Whitehall
London
SW1A 2HB

For general MOD enquiries, please call: 020 7218 9000