rank of life insurers paying out without quibble

moneysaver129 · 23 January 2020 at 11:54AM

Is there a reliable annual league table of life insurers and their likelihood of their paying out? There seems a dearth of info on this in the public domain.

Weighty1 · 23 January 2020 at 12:29PM

Most insurers publish their annual claims history. Generally for life insurance only plans claims rates are around 98-99% with little variance between providers.

The rate then drops to between ~89% - 95% for critical illness plans and similar for long term income protection plans.

There's not an annual league table that I'm aware of though.

strawb_shortcake · 23 January 2020 at 1:28PM

With the use of the term quibble, it's worth pointing out that all insurance companies will do their due diligence. Having gone through the proceess its night onerous but did take 3 months to collate all the data to make a decision. I think life insurance pays out quicker than critical.

garth549 · 23 January 2020 at 1:54PM

Life insurance has a very high payout rate across the board as there are very few exclusions to a claim. Suicide within the first year is a common one for example.

Generally there'll be almost no variance on payout rates between insurers and you'd only need to worry if you've not declared something important on inception of the policy.

SonOf · 23 January 2020 at 3:19PM

Most life assurance plans (not life assurance not life insurance - the latter often have clauses) will pay out quickly and without issue.

There seems a dearth of info on this in the public domain.

When 99% of life assurance claims pay out, there is little to write about.

jonesMUFCforever · 23 January 2020 at 11:37PM

They will not pay out without a quibble - you have to be dead first!

ACG · 24 January 2020 at 8:41AM

As has been said, generally speaking the payouts on life insurance at very very high.

They generally only refuse to payout if:
1) You are not dead.
2) You missed something significant off the application form.

By significant I mean, if you have high blood pressure and did not disclose it then they may not pay out or may not pay out the full amount. If you had a cold, then that is not significant.

I used to work for a life office and we once had a claim on critical illness for a broken arm. That then had to go down as a declined claim.

Old_Lifer · 24 January 2020 at 10:24AM

In terms of speed of payout, where the policy proceeds form part of the Estate, a delay is often not the fault of the Life Office but happens at the policyholder-end of the chain. The length of time taken to obtain a Grant of Representation (Probate/Letters of Administration ) is often a delaying factor and can drag-on for months in some complicated cases.

sal_III · 24 January 2020 at 2:25PM

Not aware of a ranking, but for what is worth Comparethemarket gives you the % in the details of each insurer that provides a quote. I assume other comparison sites have similar.

Aretnap · 24 January 2020 at 11:34PM

Indeed, what sort of quibbles are you anticipating?

Life insurance is a very simple product. It pays out if you are dead. It doesn't pay out if you are alive. If they are not sure if you're dead, they tickle you and see if you smile..(Or possibly they ask for a death certificate, but I prefer to think the former is true.). It doesn't come with a 200 page list of exclusions and conditions, so the only reasons it might not pay out are

(1) you are alive
(2) you didn't answer the questions about your health truthfully when you took out the policy or
(3) you took your own life in the first year of the policy (usually the only significant exclusion)

None of these are common scenarios, hence the very high payout rates.

rank of life insurers paying out without quibble

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