Aviva Paid Out £870m in 2016 Protection Insurance Claims

Aviva has become the latest UK insurer to publish full details of its annual claims experience. According to its first Individual Protection Claims Report, the company paid out benefits to over 23,000 individual claimants in 2016.

The Norwich-based giant also revealed that it paid out 96.7% of all individual protection claims in 2016.

According to its report, Aviva paid out on 98.9% of life and terminal illness insurance claims, 92.3% of critical illness claims and 92.6% of income protection claims.

Highlights from the report include that Aviva paid out £522.2m in Life Insurance claims last year (including terminal illness benefits), with the top three claims resulting from:

• cancer (38%)
• cardiovascular diseases (20%)
• respiratory problems (10%).

Aviva also paid out £311m in Critical Illness claims in 2016, the vast majority of which were down to cancer (63%). Cancer represented three-quarters of the successful Critical Illness claims made by women in 2016 compared with just half of claims for men.

Aviva paid £37m in successful Income Protection claims last year, with mental health conditions being the most common reason to claim. 28% of Income Protection claims were made for mental health problems compared with 20% for musculoskeletal conditions and 12% for cancer.

A major victory

This transparency and publication of such detailed statistics by Aviva sets new standards for such claims reporting.

“This feels like a major victory for the insurance industry,” enthuses Tom Conner, Director of Drewberry. “We’ve always been very vocal in our support for greater claims transparency on the part of UK insurers. We know from helping thousands of Britons that one of the biggest hurdles preventing people from taking out proper cover remains the widespread belief that insurers try to avoid paying out when the time comes.

“In fact, Aviva’s own research highlights that Britons still think that only 47% of individual protection claims are ever paid out. The truth is that the average payout rate is roughly twice this high,” says Conner.

“We’ve always believed that publishing details of their annual claims experience is the best way for insurers to address this problem.

“That’s why we’re delighted that Aviva continues to publish this vital data every year, along with other leading insurers. This practice is fast becoming a hall-mark of the UK’s best insurers,” he says.

Raising the bar

“Up until now, most insurers have published their claims data and not much else,” says Conner, “but Aviva’s latest report includes details of the company’s claims and rehabilitation process, useful customer case studies and a breakdown of the key reasons why claims fail each year.

“We’re hoping that other UK insurers will take a leaf out of Aviva’s book,” says Conner.