Aegon UK paid out 98% of all life claims in 2016 to 663 families and businesses, representing payments amounting to £64.4 million, a 15% increase on 2015.
The average size of claim paid was £100,661 and the average age at claim was 61 years old. Cancer continued to be the most common cause of death in a life claim (44%), followed by heart-related conditions (20%).
Life policies also include the sometimes overlooked terminal illness benefit, which means the policy will pay out on diagnosis of an illness, where life expectancy is 12 months or less. These claims are assessed separately from life protection claims.
In total £23 million was paid out early for terminal illness claims in 2016. Aegon paid 95% of all terminal illness claims it received.
Aegon paid 95% of critical illness claims which represented payments of £35.4 million, just over £2 million more than the previous year.
The average size of claim paid was £92,860 and the average age at claim for CI was 50 years old.
The ‘big three’ critical illnesses – cancer, heart attack and stroke – accounted for 82.6% of critical illness claims. Cancer alone accounted for 60% of critical illness claims in 2016, followed by heart attacks (15%) and strokes (7.6%).
Of the critical illness claims declined in 2016, nearly 4% were due to the definition not being met and the remaining 1% were due to misrepresentation.
Stephen Crosbie, protection director at Aegon UK, said: “In the eyes of our customers and their families, we are only as good as our last paid claim. Our reputation as a trusted provider comes down to whether we pay claims. This is core to our business and central to why people take out protection in the first place.
“We are extremely proud that we continue to pay such a high percentage of claims, however the customer experience at point of claim is just as important as the number of claims paid.
“In the last year, we’ve taken steps to improve our service and claims experience by reducing the time it takes to claim, introducing our supportive health and wellbeing service (provided by Health Assured) and using electronic death certificates to avoid delays. This is in addition to offering claimants the opportunity to use our tele-claims service to help make claiming as easy as possible.
“We always look to pay claims, putting customers and their needs at the heart of what we do. If they find themselves having to make a claim and deal with the emotional and financial upheaval a death or serious illness can bring, our experienced team of claims assessors are on hand to support them when it matters most.”