Last year Legal and General paid over 90 per cent of claims for all protection products, including 98.3 per cent for life, 96.9 per cent for terminal illness, 93.9 per cent for income protection and 92.2 per cent for critical illness.
The figures show £520m was paid out in individual protection claims, which represents a £14.5m increase from 2013. Over the last five years L&G paid out £2.3bn in life, critical and terminal illness claims to over 42,000 customers.
The group helped 5,760 families and their beneficiaries with £271m in life claims in 2014, with the average claim payment being over £45,000 and the largest £2m.
In terms of critical illness claims, 2,575 customers received a total of £161m, with again the most common conditions to receive claims payments being cancer (63.9 per cent), heart attack (10.4 per cent) and stroke (5.6 per cent), with the average age of claimant being only 45 years old.
The average critical illness claim paid was £60,906 with £500,000 being the largest claim.
The total amount paid out for terminal illness was £86m and, similarly, cancer was by far the most common cause paid out, accounting for 96 per cent of all claims paid to 888 customers.
Last year, income protection claims paid rose to £1.46m, with the average age of claimant being 41 and the most common causes paid out being musculoskeletal (24.2 per cent), mental health (19.4 per cent) and neurological disorder (19.1 per cent).
Russ Whitworth, underwriting and claims director at L&G, stated that they paid out an average of £1.4m every day last year.
“In addition to providing some financial support, our specialist trained claims team treat each individual claim with care and compassion, supporting our customers through each step of the claims process.”
peter.walker@ft.com
