Claims 2024: Irish Life – A Better Decision for protection cover

It’s hard to believe that it's five years post the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic in very early 2020. A lot has changed over these years – a strong Irish economic recovery, more people than ever employed, a lot more working from home, cost of living challenges, housing issues and impacts from increased international instability.

Throughout this period Irish Life has always been there, providing claim payments to our mutual customers. In the five years 2020 to 2024, we paid out over 10,000 individual business death claims to the value of €790 million and over 4,400 individual business SIC claims to the value of €300 million.

Despite how essential family cover is and the high number of claim payments made, I know how hard it can be sometimes to engage with customers on protection.  It’s all too easy for a customer to put protection on the long finger in today’s world of competing financial demands. But that’s where you as a Financial Broker can step in and use your knowledge of protection claims paid and causes, to enhance your interaction with customers and add real value to the conversation. To support you in those conversations, I am providing some key information on protection claims paid by Irish Life during 2024.

Irish Life paid out €1 million every working day

During 2024, Irish Life paid out €1 million every working day to individual business claimants and their families, to overcome the adverse financial consequences of a death, serious illness, medical inability to work or another illness insured under a rider benefit.

Below are some further details. These outline claims paid during 2024, but bear in mind the actual death or diagnosis may have happened before 2024.

Source: Irish Life 2024

Death claims paid by Irish Life

We paid over €3.4 million a week on death claims during last year.

Volumes of paid death claims during 2024 were marginally down on 2023.  The biggest individual causes of death were cancers (844 claims), respiratory (383 claims) and then heart/vascular (239 claims).

The largest claim paid during 2024 was for just under €5 million. In total we paid 5 death claims for over €1 million. Only 24% of death claims paid overall were for amounts over €100,000, with only 4% being over €250,000.

We paid 564 death claims in respect of lives between the ages of 41 and 60 - typically ages where people have mortgages and dependent children.

Sadly, every year we pay death claims as a result of sudden, unexpected accidents. During 2024 we paid out over €5.7 million on non-medical condition related deaths on 12 lives.

Sudden medical deaths also occur, including on plans where the cover had only been in force a relatively short period of time.

As examples, we paid one death claim for €300,000 to the estate of a person in their 30s in 2024 as a result of late-stage cancer onset. We had previously paid a specified illness claim of €40,000 for the same cause 3 months prior to the death claim. The plan was only taken out in 2022.

An individual in their 40s was underwritten in 2022. They made a specified illness claim for an uncommon cancer in mid-2024 for €36,000. This unfortunately metastasised and we subsequently paid a death claim later in 2024 for €48,000.

A person in their 50s disclosed a substantial medical history, and smoking, in 2020. They were fully underwritten, and a moderate loading and smoker rates applied. Unfortunately, the person died of lung cancer in 2024, and a death claim was paid for €50,000.

So unexpected deaths do unfortunately occur, even at relatively young ages. They will very likely lead to adverse financial consequences for their dependants unless adequate family protection is in place. None of us ever know what the future holds.

Irish Life paid 99% of death claims during 2024. We monitor this key measure for protection business and this percentage has remained stable over many years. This is something that should give you confidence when placing your life cover protection business with Irish Life.

The main reason death claims are not paid is because of material non-disclosure during the application process. As an example during 2024, we saw a claim on a plan less that two years in force, accepted at standard rates originally based on clear answers to application questions. The plan was for over €150,000 life cover. Upon investigation at claims stage for a cardiac related death, it transpired that the person has been referred to a cardiologist and other specialists at the time of application. Had this been disclosed, as it should have based on the health questions asked, cover would not have been offered at underwriting stage.

We paid 30 terminal illness claims during 2024, with the average benefit being €159,000. The most common cause of specific medical condition was malignant brain cancer. Sadly, the youngest Terminal Illness claimant was just aged 40.

Specified Illness Cover claims

We paid out over €1 million a week on SIC claims during the past year. Volumes of paid SIC claims were also marginally down versus 2023.

Our largest SIC claim paid was for €750,000 and had been in force over 25 years. We paid a total of six SIC claims for over €500,000, two claimants were in their 50s. Some of these plans had indexation increases each year.

47% of all SIC claims were for amounts over €50,000. I strongly believe that some level of SIC should be in place to support customers if there are diagnosed with a covered serious medical condition. This tax-free lump sum can go a long way to helping support a claimant financially during absences from work and in other ways, during a very challenging time for them.

Within specified illness cover, the top conditions under which we paid claims during 2024 continued to be malignant cancer (63%), heart related (17%), stroke (permanent symptoms) (6%), and multiple sclerosis (2%), so 88% for the top four medical areas. 

The biggest single individual medical causes of specified illness cover claims were:

• 181 breast cancers
• 118 prostate cancers
• 73 heart attacks (including 20 on female lives)
• 63 strokes (permanent symptoms)
• 39 colon cancers

We paid 329 claims for malignant cancer to female claimants; that’s 78% of overall SIC claims on females.

Under the 31 additional payment SIC claims paid during 2024 the biggest volumes were paid for ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast and then angioplasty.

Irish Life’s current specified illness products cover 48 full payment conditions and also 41 additional payment conditions, so there are lots of conditions covered.

One example of an early Specified Illness Cover claim we paid in 2024 was under a plan taken out 12 months beforehand. The claim was for a malignant cancer. The claim was fully investigated but there was no non-disclosure, just a sudden onset and diagnosis. A €30,000 claim was paid. The learning is that nobody knows when a sudden cancer can develop and negatively impact a family’s finances.

We paid 591 SIC claims to lives between ages 41 and 60. So again, key age ranges where customers will very likely have family and financial commitments.

Irish Life paid 92% of SIC claims during 2024. This high percentage combined with our huge operational experience in paying over 4400 SIC claims since 2020 should again give you confidence in placing SIC business with Irish Life.

The biggest cause of declined SIC claims is ‘definition not met’, where some of the claims in this category are really deferred claims until a condition deteriorates medically to the point that a benefit may be triggered.

Less than 2% of SIC claims declined due to material non-disclosure during 2024, which is low, but we would prefer to have no claims declined due to this reason. As an example, in 2024 we saw a SIC claim for a heart attack on a plan less than 18 months in force, accepted at standard rates originally based on clean application questions. However, upon investigation, we discovered that the person had uncontrolled hypertension and was a diabetic at the time of application. If full disclosure was made, as it should have been, then no cover would have been offered. The claim was declined, and the plan was voided due to this material non-disclosure.

We in Irish Life take various actions to try and identify potential non-disclosure across all protection plans during the underwriting process. We also adopt processes to try and avoid a claim ever being refused due to material non-disclosure. For example, non-medical limits, post issue sampling, regular statistical data analysis of disclosure rates and providing the customer with a copy of their application questions and answers to review as part of their plan documents.

Insurance Ireland Code of Practice for the Underwriting of Mortgage Protection Insurance for Cancer Survivors – update.

As you know, this code came into effect in early December 2023. Irish Life has been able to fully support this code for the past 15 months. This code is a framework which allows cancer diagnoses to be exempt from the normal underwriting decision process in certain specific circumstances.

During the first 12 months of this code’s operation, Irish Life have accepted approximately €20 million in sums assured under this code. This means that under the code the customer got standard rates for their malignant cancer medical history. They also got this cover speedily, where typically no third-party medical evidence was asked for in respect of their malignant cancer medical history.

It is important to restate that the customer must still disclose their malignant cancer history and any other medical history, on their application for mortgage protection cover. Our underwriters will access the application under the code’s criteria and communicate the decision directly to you as the broker. The customer has no ‘right to forget’ their malignant cancer history and if they do, that could potentially cause very serious issues at a claims stage.

Financial advice is still critically important to support applicants who have any significant medical history.

I would add that a cancer survivor does not always have to wait, say, seven years post treatment to be able to get mortgage life cover (under the II code) or family life cover. Going through normal underwriting can still mean life cover may be able to be offered but maybe with a loading. If you have a customer with a cancer medical history, it’s always worth speaking to an underwriter before the customer applied for any cover.

I hope that you found this review of the individual business protection claims paid by Irish Life in 2024 interesting and that it will help to enhance the protection conversations with your customers, so avoiding them putting their protection gap on the long finger.