The Exeter based mutual, which was the first income protection insurer to publish its data in 2005, has released the statistics with the aim of promoting consumer confidence in income protection.
Commenting, chief executive Andy Chapman said: “We made a commitment to publishing our claims numbers in 2005 and we’ve done so ever since. Paying claims is what we’re here to do; so to me there’s nothing more natural than publishing these statistics.
“More and more providers are now releasing their claims statistics, whilst there are still a few who don’t. I’m not going to issue another rallying call to those few, just reiterate that the reason for releasing statistics in the first place was to raise confidence in the product as a whole, not score points over one another.” The statistics not only highlight the overall claims paid, but also categorised claims according to reason, the type of illness or injury.
The most common cause for claim was muscular and skeletal injuries and disorders (excluding back) with 25.56% of claims related to these conditions, whilst the least common cause was as a result of lacerations, scalds and burns which accounted for just 1.74%.
Head of intermediary sales, Mike O’Brien, commented: “The fact that over 5% of our paid claims during 2010 were made as a result of viruses, flu and colds shows exactly what we’re about; we’re here to protect our customers and their families from the impact of ill health and if it stops you working, it has an impact.
“At the end of the day, to the self-employed and employed people with limited sick pay what keeps them off work doesn’t matter, they’re simply concerned with how to pay their bills in the short term.”
