The 2018 annual death claim benefit statistics for fully underwritten individual life policies released last week by the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) show that life insurers paid 33 545 claims, representing 99.3% of all claims received. Life insurers declined 222 claims, a mere 0.7% of claims against underwritten individual life policies in 2018.
Fully underwritten life policies are only issued if the individual policyholder has completed a full underwriting process, which involves a comprehensive assessment of the life insured’s health and medical history.
According to Rosemary Lightbody, senior policy adviser at ASISA, the value of death claim benefits for fully underwritten individual life policies has more than doubled from R6.8 billion to R15.1 billion since ASISA started consolidating statistics in 2012.
Death claims against fully underwritten life policies will always be paid by insurers, provided the claim is not fraudulent and the policyholder did not:
- Commit suicide within the first two years of taking out the policy;
- Withhold important information from the insurer when applying for the policy; or
- Die as a result of an exclusion.
Lightbody points out that more than half of claims were rejected by life insurers due to nondisclosure of material information, which involves an act of dishonesty on the part of policyholders.
Click here to read the ASISA media release that shares more statistics.
Click here to download the Afrikaans version of the ASISA media release.
