LV= paid a record £119m in protection claims in 2021 to more than 9,000 claimants and their families, with 96% of all individual protection claims made being approved.
This compares to £117.8m to 9,500 claimants in 2020 and £108.8m to 8,100 claimants in 2019 before the pandemic hit.
The mutual also noted strong demand for additional support through its doctor services last year, with remote GP appointments up by 13% and 97% of appointments offered within four hours.
Critical illness
LV= paid out more than £28m in critical illness (CI) claims in 2021 to 362 individuals and their families, with 93% of CI claims paid. Cancer accounted for 58% of all CI claims, followed by heart attack (11%) and stroke (8%), with the highest payment amounting to £449,982.
Of those cancer diagnosis claims, breast (32%), bowel (12%) and prostate (7%) accounting for the majority.
The insurer also paid a total of £223,250 for claims involving children from newborn to 18 years old. The average payment was £77,944 and the highest was £499,982. The average age of CI claimants was 49 and the youngest was 24.
Life insurance
Life assurance claims including terminal illness and over-50s claims totalled around £74m, supporting 6,677 families. The top causes for claims were cancer with 39% and Covid-19 16% of claims respectively, with almost £12m in payments made due to Covid alone.
The youngest life claimant was aged just 27 years old. The average time a policy was in place before a claim was 8 years and 11 months and the highest claim payment was £11.3m.
Income protection
LV= paid nearly £13.6m in income protection (IP) claims to nearly 1,000 individuals and families, with 93% of IP claims approved supporting 951 people who were unable to work.
The mutual paid an average of £6,621 per new claim with musculoskeletal issues (20%), fractures (20%) and cancer (17%), making up nearly 58% of all IP claims. Covid-related IP claims amounted to £63,616 over the year to 209 claimants.
Almost two thirds (63%) of claimants were male and the youngest IP claimant was 24.
Claims for personal sick pay protection, designed for self-employed and contract workers, totalled over £2.7m with payments made to 1,112 individuals. The youngest claimant was 19 and the top reasons for claims were musculoskeletal (37%), Covid-19 (21%) and fractures (11%).
Unpaid claims
The 4% of declined protection claims were not paid for a variety of reasons including failing to disclose existing medical conditions, misrepresentation and fraud, and not meeting the policy definitions.
The key areas that resulted in claims not being paid included smoking, alcohol, BMI, health history and the non-disclosure of a current health problem.
Anna Rogers, head of underwriting and claims at LV=, said: “Reflecting on the past year, I am proud to say that LV= continues to pay more claims and more importantly offers support when our customers need us most. Behind each of these statistics is a real person or a family with a unique story. Our help doesn’t start and end with a claim payment.
“In 2021, Covid continued to dominate our lives and was a key element in our claims experience across multiple products. We do expect to see these claims reduce as we continue to live with the virus and testing decreases.
“Those in the industry know that supporting individuals and their families going through a life-changing event is the reason why we do what we do.”
Rogers noted that research from the mutual revealed one in four people did not have protection insurance because they did not know enough about it.
“We still have some way to go to build public trust and demonstrate just how important protection is,” she added.