Aviva paid a total of £1.18bn on 50,600 protection claims over the course of 2023, the highest annual amount Aviva has paid to date.
This represented 97.8 per cent of individual protection claims being paid, spanning across individual life insurance, critical illness cover, income protection, and other protection policies.
Aviva head of claims strategy and governance for protection, Jacqueline Kerwood, said: “With an average of £3.2mn paid out every day last year on individual protection claims, we have again shown our consistency and scale in helping customers and their families.
“Since 2019 we have paid out more than £5.37bn to UK families on just over 233,000 claims.
“However, the support we give to customers is so much broader than just making payments, with our claims specialists experienced in identifying where additional support would benefit and make a real difference to each customer.”
As part of this, Kerwood pointed to Aviva’s partnership with Macmillan Cancer support, stating that customers benefitted through cancer nurse specialists helping with their claim or by signposting to support services.
Critical illness
Aviva paid out £362mn on critical illness policies, with the most common reason being a cancer diagnosis, occurring in 58 per cent of all policies.
This was ahead of heart attack, which made up 17 per cent of all male claims and 4 per cent of all female claims, and stroke, 11 per cent of all claims for men and 4 per cent of all claims for women.
Aviva also reported that 5,048 claims were paid in total for critical illness including total permanent disability and children’s benefit, with 91.6 per cent of claims paid.
Of those claims that were declined, 5.8 per cent had not met the definition, and a further 2.4 per cent misrepresented relevant information during the application.
Life insurance
Aviva paid £761mn on individual life insurance and terminal illness benefits last year.
This was 11.4 per cent higher than the amount paid in 2022 despite the number of claims paid, 40,436, being slightly lower than the previous year’s 41,002 claims.
Additionally, more than £101mn of the total was paid out as terminal illness benefit to 729 customers, with an average payment of around £139,000, helping those customers put their affairs in order.
Aviva also reported that, consistent with previous years, 99.3 per cent of all claims were paid.
The insurer explained that, of the 0.7 per cent of claims declined, more than half were because the customer misrepresented relevant information at the point of application, for example, their health and lifestyle.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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