Smart Tables® tool set to modernise judicial decisions
MEMBERS of the Smart Tables®️ team (from left) Mr Brendon Bhagwandeen, Ms Amy Khan, Mr Stokeley Smart, Ms Anysha Thomas, Justice Nadia Kangaloo, Mr Kyle Rudden, and Ms Zara-Leigh Lewis at a ceremony hosted by The UWI St Augustine Actuarial Science Club on March 12. PHOTO: ATIBA CUDJOE
Traditionally, judges in Trinidad and Tobago’s judicial system when determining how much money to award people in cases related to loss of earnings due to personal injury or death of a loved one. In Trinidad and Tobago, these payments are normally made as a single lump sum.
Trinidad and Tobago, these payments are normally made as a single lump sum.
For these compensations, judges are required to make complex calculations, which must account for factors like mortality rates and future interest rates, amongst other variables.
The local process is set to be digitised and modernised with the Smart Tables®.
Launched on December 4, 2025, the tool was developed by Senior UWI St Augustine Actuarial Science Lecturer and Programme Director, Stokeley Smart, leading an interdisciplinary team of experts.
In a recent interview, Smart gave a look at the process of creating the Smart Tables® and explained how the tool will contribute to the development of the local judiciary.
“There wasn’t a robust and quantitative methodology, based on scientific and actuarial principles, to quantify the sums in these types of loss of earnings awards.
“So when these judgements are made, there is a certain arbitrariness to the manner in which these judgements were come up with, and even for similar cases, there is variation from judge to judge,” Smart explained.
The concept for the Smart Tables® was birthed out of conversations between Smart and High Court Judge Justice Nadia Kangaloo.
There was a mutual recognition that an accessible, localised tool to assist with financial compensation was needed.
The idea was also not far-fetched given that there were already the Ogden Tables being used in the United Kingdom since 1984.
The Ogden Tables are actuarial tables used in UK personal injury and fatal accident cases to calculate lump- sum compensation for future financial losses, such as loss of earnings or care costs.
To create a local version of the tables that was appropriate to the local jurisdiction, Small and Justice Kangaloo assembled a team of academics, professionals and postgraduate students in 2018.
Members of the working group included economist Dr Vaalmikki Arjoon, Simone Balkissoon of the Caribbean Actuarial Association, UWI Actuarial Science lecturer Brendon Bhagwandeen, High Court Judge Justice Christopher Sieuchand, Representative of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago Ramnarine Mungroo, and Ronnie Vinda Persad of the Assembly of Southern Lawyers.
Alumni of the UWI St Augustine Actuarial Science programme that contributed work to the development of the tables included Arianna Ali, Kristal Boodram, Valsson Tobias, Cyrus Lakhan, Chandini Gunpat, Zara-Leigh Lewis, and Shastri Singh Doodnath.
A Caribbean Actuarial Association research grant of over US$13,000 supported work on the project.
Smart shared, “As a fellow of the Society of Actuaries, who also has a law degree, I was well-positioned to come up with the framework and lead a team to work on filling this particular gap that existed in the local judiciary.
“The first step was to go and take a look at the Ogden Tables and see how they worked, as we wanted to replicate exactly the results that they got.
“So, we set up spreadsheets and figured out how to reverse engineer the results that they were getting.”
Part of the work of building a skeletal framework for the Smart Tables, by better understanding the Ogden Tables, was consulting with the UK’s Chief Government Actuary via virtual meetings.
Once a skeletal framework for the Smart Tables® was developed from this work, they then continued to tweak it to adapt it to a local context.
“The other aspect of the process of creating the Smart Tables® was sourcing accurate indigenous data for both the Interest Rate Methodology and the Demographic Assumptions that are key inputs into the Smart Tables Methodology.”
“We didn’t have indigenous mortality tables for Trinidad and Tobago, so in parallel with developing the Smart Tables, we also created mortality tables.”
Smart detailed the mortality table was created using population mortality data from the employed persons mortality table using empirical data from the National Insurance Board.
With proper mortality tables in place and the framework of the Smart Tables® fully developed, it was peer-reviewed by Chris Daykin, who worked on the original Ogden Tables back in 1984.
In December 2025, the website for the Smart Tables® was rolled out during a launch ceremony at the Main Salon of the Campus Principal’s Office.
People can expect the Smart Tables® to be used in local judicial cases starting soon, which means that judges who use the tool will no longer have to do complex calculations to determine lump-sum compensations.
“All I can say, at this stage, is that the Smart Tables® are being introduced to the system. Very soon, there will be cases in the public record which will make mention of the tool being used,” said Smart.
Other jurisdictions may soon also find value in the Smart Tables® as it was designed to be adaptable for jurisdictions around the world that are based on British common law.
In November 2025, Smart and his team won Best Research Team at the UWI Principal’s Awards for work on the Smart Tables® and its sub-projects, including the creation of mortality tables for Trinidad and Tobago.
