OREANDA-NEWS. Aviva protection customers and their families received over ?513 million(1) through claims on life insurance, critical illness and income protection cover in 2014. This equates to around ?1.4 million pounds a day, or almost ?1,000 per minute.

The annual total paid to Aviva life protection customers shows a consistent year-on-year level. During 2014, Aviva paid ?340 million to the families of life insurance customers who had died or been diagnosed with a terminal illness, almost ?161 million to customers with critical illness (CI) cover(2) and over ?12 million to customers with income protection (IP) cover.
 
The data reveals that 14,805 families benefitted from life, CI and IP claims during 2014. This includes 11,198 life insurance, 2,246 critical illness and 1,361 income protection claims.

Over the year, the insurer paid 99% of life insurance claims and 93.2% of critical illness claims. Of critical illness claims which were not paid, 1.2% of them were declined due to misrepresentation (non-disclosure), and 5.6% for conditions not met.

For the last two years Aviva’s claims statistics have been compiled using the ABI’s industry guidelines, an approach that Aviva believes should be adopted by all providers so that customers can be confident statistics are calculated in a consistent and transparent way.

Key statistics for 2014 include:

  • The average sum paid to critical illness customers was ?73,120
  • The average age of critical illness customers was 46 years for women (45 in 2013) and 49 years for men (48 in 2013).
  • Cancer remains the most common cause of critical illness claims at 65% (down from 67% in 2013), followed by heart attack (12%), stroke (7%), multiple sclerosis (4%) and total permanent disability or ‘TPD’ (3%).

Louise Colley, Protection Director at Aviva says: “Our latest figures are reassuring for all families who have protection products with us. No one ever wants to claim against this type of policy, but knowing that we are committed to paying claims wherever possible provides families with the reassurance and comfort they need if the worst does happen.

“Almost 40,000 families have benefitted from payments in the last three years, with payments totalling more than ?1.5 billion. Our commitment to our customers is simple, and remains the same as always, we will continue to enhance our protection products whilst making the claims process as quick and straightforward as possible.”