Legal and General have revealed that the company paid out 93% of the critical illness claims it received in 2008, up from 88% the previous year. Just 4% of claims were declined as a result of non-disclosure compared with 8% in 2007. It was also revealed that the total value of the claims paid by the insurer amounted to £146 million, £36 million more than had been paid out in 2007, while the average claim worked out at more than £70,000.
This is clearly a step in the right direction as far as negative publicity goes for critical illness. There are still those people who say that critical illness cover doesn’t pay out. I was reading a story on the internet only two days ago where someone was saying that they had been in hospital and while they were being treated a nurse had said that she had never known of a critical illness policy being paid out. With statistics like Legal and General’s as well as other insurers, stories like this don’t really stack up. A critical illness policy is taken out for purpose and it is important that the insurers offer clear defintions as to what is required for a successful claim. The standardised ABI defintions clearly show that this is the case.
“Our claims history demonstrates that the measures taken to reduce declined critical illness claims are working,” said Bernie Hickman, managing director of protection. Hopefully this trend will continue over the next few years which will, in turn, restore confidence in this type of insurance.
Fri, Mar 13, 2009
critical illness cover