The Association of British Insurers (ABI) and Group Risk Development (GRiD) have revealed 97 per cent of group and individual protection claims are paid out by insurers.
ABI and GRiD have published claim statistics across the whole protection insurance industry for 2015, showing more than £5 billion was paid out across 153,700 claims. The figures also show that insurers supported claimants with more than £14 million every day.
ABI has stated that where claims were declined it was usually because of the claim being for a condition not covered in the policy, or a customer not disclosing important information when taking out the policy.
Raluca Boroianu-Omura, ABI assistant director of protection and health, said products like income protection and life insurance can improve people’s financial resilience.
“As well as financial support, protection insurance can help prevent people needing to leave work, and if they do need to leave due to illness or injury, rehabilitation services can help them return to work sooner,” said Boroianu-Omura. “As a result, protection insurance benefits individuals and employers, and relieves the burden on the State, helping the economy to grow.”
Lee Lovett, Chairman of GRiD, said the figures show how much significant support protection insurance provides.
“Despite this, the major challenge for our industry is that a material proportion of the working population have no (or insufficient) cover and GRiD’s focus is on improving awareness and ultimately increasing the number of lives that have access to cover via their employer.”
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