Estate claim

An estate claim is the deceased person’s own claim, continued after death for the benefit of their estate rather than their family personally.

Section 8 of the Civil Law Act 1956 lets a claim that existed before death, such as pain suffered, medical expenses and funeral costs, survive and be pursued by the estate’s personal representative.^[1] It does not include loss of earnings for the period after death, which the law does not allow the estate to claim.

An estate claim runs alongside, not instead of, a dependency claim by surviving family, and care is taken so the same loss is not counted twice.

Estate claims after a fatal accident sets out how the two claims relate.