Zurich pays 96% of protection claims in 2018

The six claims that were declined for life were because of non-disclosure of important medical information, such as history of smoking or alcohol misuse, at application stage.

A total of £134.6m was paid to 1,798 life insurance customers. The highest life claim paid was £1.2m, with the average being £51,000.

Critical illness

For critical illness (CI), 91% of claims were accepted and 9% were declined due to the non-disclosure of medical information at application stage.

Over 912 CI claims were paid, amounting to £90.6m, including partial payments for less severe conditions covered by policies. The largest claim was for £2.1m and the average was just over £83,000.

Breast cancer accounted for nearly a quarter of all CI claims (23%), followed by heart attack (13%), stroke (8%) and prostate cancer (6%).

Zurich paid over £600k in claims for children's critical illness, with cancer being the most common cause.

Income protection

For income protection (IP), 95% of new claims were paid and the 5% did not receive financial support from their policies because they recovered within their deferred period.

A total of £8.2m was paid out for IP policies last year by Zurich, with an average of 451 claims in payment each month.

The most common causes of IP claims were mental illness including anxiety, stress or depression (28%), following by cancer (23%), musculoskeletal disorder (10%) and chronic fatigue syndrome (7%).

'Life changing'

Peter Hamilton, Zurich's head of retail protection said: "Our consistently high claims paid figures help to reinforce the message that we're here to support our customers when they need it. As well as flexible products and extra support services we're committed to providing first class service with claims handled sensitively and efficiently.

"When people make a claim we know that they're usually facing difficult and life changing situations and we're here to support them to make the whole process as smooth as possible."

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Individual Protection
• Insurer
• Zurich
• claims