Scottish Widows has published its income protection claims statistics for the first time, meaning all providers now publish their IP claims data.
Widows paid out in 83 per cent of its 191 IP claims in 2012. Of the numbers declined, 19 were due to non-disclosure and 13 were due to the definition not being met.
Until earlier this year, insurers had refused to publish their IP statistics, mainly because there is no uniform way of reporting them, which means they cannot be easily compared against other providers. Moreover, the small number of claims mean just one refusal could skew the headline percentage reported.
Earlier this month, Friends Life published its IP claims statistics for the first time, after initially refusing to do so. Of the big providers, Zurich was the first to publish its IP claims statistics in March, followed by Aegon and later Scottish Provident/Bright Grey.
Scottish Widows also published its life and critical illness statistics today, showing it paid 98 per cent of the 3,343 life claims it received and 88 per cent of the 1,999 CI claims it received. In 2012, Widows paid 97 per cent of its life claims and 87 per cent of its CI claims.
Of the 12 per cent of CI claims it rejected in 2012, one third of them were rejected because of non-disclosure and two-thirds were due to the definition not being met.
Widows head of bancassurance enablement and protection Katya Maclean says: “We will continue to work with the industry to change the traditional trigger points at which people purchase protection products away from simply taking out a mortgage. We would encourage everyone to think about their own need for protection when life circumstances change.”
Earlier this month, Money Marketing revealed the provider had hired former Legal & General RDR Business implementation director Esther Dijsktra to spearhead its return to the intermediary protection sector, which is expected by the end of next year.
Whilst it’s laudable that Scottish Widows has published its data, especially with such a small book, a declination rate of 10% due to non-disclosure is unacceptable.
Whilst it’s worth questioning what SW are doing to try and reduce this figure it’s also worth questioning what the tied providers of Scottish Widows products are doing to improve their advisers accuracy and questioning methods when completing the application.
I for one would be interested to know how many of these declined claims were from plans sold via tied provider as opposed to older plans sold via IFA’s/protection specialist.