Scottish Widows has paid out £204m on life and critical illness claims in 2017, equating to about £4m a week and representing 98.99 per cent of life and 93.06 per cent of critical illness (CI) claims received.
The provider paid out on 7,469 life and 1,769 critical illness claims in the year, with men accounting for 59 per cent of life claims and 47 per cent of critical illness claims.
The total amount paid out in life claims was £129.4m, with £13.46m paid in terminal illness claims.
The insurer stated cancer was behind 55 per cent of all claims from women and 44 per cent from men, while heart related claims accounted for 20 per cent of cases with men and 9 per cent of cases with women.
The youngest claimant was aged 20, and the eldest aged 89, while the average policy duration at claim stage was 10 years.
The total amount paid out in critical illness claims was £75.19m, with cancer accounting for 74 per cent of claims from women, mainly breast cancer, alongside 51 per cent from men.
The youngest adult claimant was aged 21, and the eldest aged 79. The age of the youngest children's claim was 8.2 months.
The latest figures mean that since January 2000, Scottish Widows has paid a total of £2.5bn in claims to more than 86,000 customers.
Of the life claims declined, 0.85 per cent were due to mis-representation and 0.16 per cent due to the definition of terminal illness not being met.
On critical illness, 4.6 per cent of claims were declined due to the definition not being met and 2.3 per cent were due to misrepresentation.
Scottish Widows' figures were compiled using the ABI guidance for calculating claims statistics.
Scott Cadger, head of underwriting and claims strategy at Scottish Widows, said the industry needed to do more to educate the public on the merits of protection insurance.
He said: "Our research shows that people, on average, believe that only 34 per cent of protection claims are paid out by insurance companies.
“We must do more as an industry to dispel the myth that insurers will do anything to avoid paying a claim, and improve confidence among consumers that their policy will provide for them when it's needed.”
Alan Knowles, managing director of Cura Financial Services, said: “Scottish Widows are delivering on their word to customers by paying the majority of the claims they see.
“Contrary to public belief, the majority of claims are paid out and Scottish Widows should be proud of how many families they helped during such challenging times.”
carmen.reichman@ft.com