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The amount that the asbestos victim compensation fund FIVA (“Fonds d’Indemnisation des Victimes de l’Amiante”) pays each year is constantly increasing. It exceeds €400 million each year (€440m for 2015). This represents a total of €5 billion paid since FIVA’s creation in 2002.
In 2015, FIVA recorded a total of 20,329 claims for compensation, or a 6.4% increase. Victims suffering benign conditions (pleural plaques and pleural thickening) still predominate, with a rate of 53.5% in 2015. However, the proportion of malignant conditions is increasing, and in particular bronchopulmonary cancers, now diagnosed earlier, and mesothelioma – evidence of which is regarded as substantiating evidence of asbestos exposure. In 2015, these two diseases accounted for 40.6% of new victims known to the FIVA. They result in high disability rates, and the amounts paid to compensate the victims represent 83.6% of total expenditures.
Note that FIVA is taking liability action against employers to retrieve the amount of the compensation paid to victims and legal beneficiaries and to obtain an increase in the lump sum payment or pension for them. In 2015, for example, FIVA brought 814 subrogatory recourse actions, including 644 on grounds of inexcusable fault, four for recognition of occupational disease, to dispute a refusal of compensation, and 166 recourse actions against public-sector employers. “The overall success rate of these recourse actions is 86%, generating €38.24 million in revenues”, emphasizes FIVA.
Salient 2015 facts and results for FIVA (in French)
