Thousands of families receive valuable financial support as leading insurer pays £1 billion in claims

Financial protection such as life insurance, Critical Illness cover, and income protection is designed to provide valuable support at a time you really need it.

It’s there to provide cash to your loved ones if you pass away, money to you if you can’t work due to an accident or injury, or an income to help you to pay your mortgage, rent, and bills if you’re off work for an extended period due to ill health.

The support this cover provides cannot be overexaggerated – as new figures from one of the UK’s leading insurers has recently revealed.

Aviva have reported that they paid more than £1 billion in protection claims in 2022, with more than 50,000 claimants benefiting from a valuable injection of cash when they or their family really needed it.

Read on to find out more about how Aviva has supported hundreds of thousands of families over recent years.

Aviva pays more than £1 billion in claims for the third consecutive year

Leading insurer Aviva paid more than 50,000 individual protection claims in 2022, with a total payout of more than £1 billion going to help policyholders and their families in their time of need. It’s the third consecutive year that claims payments have exceeded £1 billion, equivalent to more than £2.9 million being paid out every single day. 

Overall, Aviva paid a staggering 98.3% of all individual protection claims – the highest reported figure since 2015.

Jacqueline Kerwood, claims philosophy manager at Aviva, said: “The scale of the payments we consistently make to individual protection customers year-on-year evidences the crucial financial support that our protection insurance provides for tens of thousands of UK households, especially during times of broader cost of living challenges. 

“Over the last five years we have paid over £5.1 billion across more than 200,000 individual protection claims, supporting UK families during the most difficult times.”

The table below shows Aviva’s claim payment record in 2022.

	Number of claims paid in 2022	Value of claims paid in 2022	% of claims paid
Life insurance (including Terminal Illness benefit)	41,002	£683,638,563	99.4%
Critical Illness cover (including children’s Critical Illness and total and permanent disability)	4,689	£334,070,894	93.5%
Income protection	3,683	£50,636,470	94.3%
Fracture cover	866	£2,185,300	89.7%
Hospital/Trauma/Therapy/Carer cover	355	£531,177	99.2%
Total	50,595	£1,071,062,404	98.3%

Source: Aviva

Here’s a breakdown by “type of protection” of just how much support Avivia provided to their customers in 2022.

More than £683 million paid in life insurance claims (including terminal illness benefit)

In 2022, Aviva paid more than £683 million across 41,000 life insurance and terminal illness benefit claims. An impressive 99.4% of all claims on life policies were accepted.

In line with previous years, cancer was the most common reason for a life insurance claim, accounting for 33% of all death and terminal illness claims. This was followed by claims for cardiovascular disease (21%) and respiratory disease (13%).

Aviva declined just 0.6% of life insurance and terminal illness claims in 2022. Most of these were because the customer misrepresented relevant information at the point of application, for example their health and lifestyle.

More than £330 million paid in Critical Illness claims (including children’s benefit and total permanent disability)

Claims under Critical Illness protection rose in 2022. Aviva paid almost 4,690 claims with policyholders diagnosed with a defined illness covered under their policy receiving a total of £334 million. This includes just over £5 million in children’s Critical Illness benefit.

In addition, Aviva paid more than £294,000 in children’s hospital benefit and just under £52,000 in adult hospital benefit.

The three main causes for an adult critical illness claim were:

• Cancer (around 58% of claims)
• Heart attack (10%)
• Stroke (7%).

Aviva report that claims for cancer were more common among women, accounting for just under three-quarters of all Critical Illness claims by females, compared to around half of claims by men. Heart attack was the second most common reason for claims by men at 18%, compared to around 3% for claims by women.

More than 1 in 3 children’s Critical Illness claims were for cancer. Haematological cancer was the most common type, accounting for just under half of all children’s cancer claims.

2022 also saw Aviva’s protection claims team send out around 650 gifts to lift the spirits of customers going through a claim. More than 400 such gifts were sent to children and their families as part of the insurer’s “Project Teddy” initiative for children’s Critical Illness claims.

Aviva say they accepted 93.5% of all Critical Illness claims. They declined 4.3% of claims because illness definitions in the policy were not met – for example, the illness was not severe enough to meet the threshold for a payout. In addition, Aviva declined 1.9% of claims because the customer misrepresented relevant information at the point of application.

More than 3,600 individuals benefit from an income protection claim

Aviva reports that they paid more than £50 million in income protection benefit in 2022, helping more than 3,680 customers who were unable to work due to illness or injury. In addition, the insurer paid £7 million in “Back To Work” benefit across 535 claims for customers returning to work.

For all customers in claim in 2022, the most common reason for claiming was mental health conditions, at 30% of all claims. Musculoskeletal claims accounted for 26% of all claims paid and cancer for 13%.

With Aviva managing a number of older income protection policies, the claims data shows that the longest income protection claim that is currently in claim has been paying out for more than 35 years. The customer claimed for mental health and to date has received more than £415,000 through monthly benefit.

Aviva say that they paid 94.3% of all new and existing income protection claims in 2022. The insurer declined 2.8% of claims received because the policyholder misrepresented relevant information, while they declined 1.5% as the policy conditions had not been met.

Valuable financial support when it is most needed

Over the last five years, Aviva have helped more than 200,000 individuals and their families. Payouts from life insurance, Critical Illness cover, and income protection can help policyholders and their loved ones to maintain their standard of living, pay for essentials, replace income, and pay off debts such as loans or a mortgage.

Support services, particularly in the case of income protection and Critical Illness cover, can also help your recovery and get you back to work.

Without this cover, hundreds of thousands of people would have likely struggled to maintain their rent, mortgage, and regular outgoings, pay for a funeral, or access specialist healthcare or treatment.

If you’d like to ensure that you receive valuable and practical support when you really need it, get in touch.

As protection specialists, we can scour the market for you so you can compare the cost of the protection you need from dozens of the country’s leading insurers – including Aviva. Getting a quote takes just a couple of minutes, and we can also support you through the application and underwriting process.

if you want to protect you and your family, get in touch with one of our experts today, or get a life insurance quote online in just a couple of minutes.