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Friends Provident, the FTSE 100 life and pensions company, has revealed that its critical illness claims declined on the grounds of non-disclosure, dropped by a third in 2007 compared with the year before.

In its critical illness claims data for full year 2007, the company said that in total it paid out over £35.7m in critical illness claims, and for the first time, claims declined for non-disclosure were lower than claims that were declined because policy conditions were not met.

Mark Jones, head of protection at Friends Provident said: “I’m delighted that the three pronged approach we’ve applied to our range of protection products of education, simplification and promoting a culture of fairness, is beginning to pay dividends.

“The improvement in the number of critical illness claims paid will help increase consumer confidence in protection products.”

In 2007, the average critical illness payout was £58,500 but the largest claim paid by Friends’ was £750,000 with the most common illness being cancer.