If your son or daughter died in a road accident, you as parents can claim compensation for the loss of their companionship. This head is called filial consortium, and the Supreme Court treats it as a legitimate conventional head that a Claims Tribunal must award, over and above any loss of dependency, funeral expenses and loss of estate.
The grief of losing a child cannot be measured with a rupee figure. But the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 is a beneficial law, and the courts award a fixed conventional sum as a measure of solace. In Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. v. Kalu Ram (2026 INSC 653, decided 24 June 2026), the Supreme Court corrected the lower courts for having left out this head entirely, and granted Rs 40,000 to each parent as filial consortium.
Below is how a parent's claim is usually built up at a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT). The figures in the last column follow the Kalu Ram case for the conventional heads; the dependency figure is illustrative and depends on your own evidence.
| Head of compensation | Who it is for | How it is assessed |
|---|---|---|
| Filial consortium | Each surviving parent | Rs 40,000 per parent (Rs 80,000 for both), fixed as a conventional head |
| Loss of estate | The deceased's estate, which passes to the parents as heirs | Conventional sum fixed by the Tribunal |
| Funeral expenses | The family | Conventional sum on the evidence produced |
| Loss of dependency | Parents who depended on the child's earnings | Annual contribution x multiplier, after deductions, plus realistic future prospects |
| Loss of love, affection and guidance | The parents | As the Tribunal assesses on the facts |
The first three rows are the conventional heads. They are awarded almost as a matter of course once death is proved. The dependency figure is the largest part of most awards, but it only applies where the parents were financially dependent on the deceased child.
Consortium is a broad term for the companionship, care and comfort that one family member gives another. The Supreme Court in Magma General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Nanu Ram, (2018) 18 SCC 130, explained that consortium has three forms: spousal consortium between husband and wife, parental consortium for a child who loses a parent, and filial consortium for parents who lose a child. Filial consortium is the compensation for a mother and father who are deprived of the love, care and companionship of their son or daughter.
Because it is a conventional head, filial consortium is granted as a standardised sum, not by trying to price a parent's grief. That is exactly why the Kalu Ram Court called the loss one that “cannot be measured with arithmetical precision” and still fixed a set figure of Rs 40,000 per parent. The Supreme Court has also treated consortium as a recognised conventional head in United India Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Satinder Kaur, reported at (2021) 11 SCC 780.
If your child was young, the temptation is to argue that they would have become a doctor, an engineer or an officer, and to base dependency on the salary of some successful professional. The Supreme Court in Kalu Ram warned against exactly this. It held that compensation cannot be founded on assumptions of assured professional success, or on the salary benchmarks of unrelated successful professionals. Future prospects must be added on a realistic basis, tied to what the deceased actually earned or could reasonably have earned, not on a best case career that may never have happened.
This does not mean future prospects are denied. It means the Tribunal starts from the child's real income or realistic earning capacity, and then adds the standard percentage for future prospects on top. For how that percentage works, especially where the deceased was self employed, see our companion guide on self-employed future prospects at the MACT.
Where the child was earning and supporting the parents, the Tribunal calculates loss of dependency using the multiplier method: the child's yearly contribution to the parents, adjusted for future prospects and for personal expenses, multiplied by an age based multiplier. The full mechanics are set out in our guide to the multiplier method of motor accident compensation.
Two features matter for parents:
If the deceased did the unpaid work of the household rather than earning a salary, the loss is still real and compensable. That situation is covered in our note on compensation for the death of a homemaker.
Compensation is claimed under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988, and the Tribunal makes its award under Section 168.
For a fuller walkthrough of drafting and filing, use our guide to filing a MACT petition. To organise your evidence and appeal papers methodically, The RTI Playbook has a practical section on assembling documentary proof.
Both can. In Kalu Ram the Supreme Court awarded Rs 40,000 to each parent, that is Rs 80,000 in all, because each parent separately suffers the loss of the child's companionship. Claim it for the mother and the father individually.
No. Filial consortium is a conventional head for the loss of companionship, and it is separate from loss of dependency. You get consortium even if you were not financially supported by the deceased. Dependency is an additional head that applies only where you relied on the child's earnings.
Yes. You can still claim the conventional heads, including filial consortium, funeral expenses and loss of estate. A dependency award may be limited or notional because there was no established income, and Kalu Ram cautions against inflating it by assuming a future high salary. The claim does not fail just because the child was not yet earning.
Yes. Kalu Ram is authority that a legitimate conventional head cannot simply be omitted. The Supreme Court itself added filial consortium that the courts below had left out. If your Tribunal award skips a head you were entitled to, that omission can be corrected in appeal.
Filial consortium is a fixed conventional sum for the loss of your child's love and companionship. Loss of dependency is a calculated figure for the money the child would have contributed to your support, worked out by the multiplier method. A claim can include both.
Claims Tribunals are meant to decide claims far faster than ordinary civil courts, often within months rather than years, because Section 168 requires a summary inquiry. The exact time depends on the Tribunal's docket, whether the insurer contests liability, and how complete your documents are at the outset.
This guide is general legal information, not advice on your specific case. For a claim on your own facts, consult a lawyer or a legal aid clinic. Reviewed by Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak.