ABI head wants statistics to show a more accurate critical illness picture
By Peter Carvill
Nick Kirwan, assistant director for health and protection at the Association of British Insurers (ABI), has hit back at criticism of remarks he made recently regarding the publishing of claims statistics.
Kirwan was reported as saying the industry should not have published critical illness (CI) claims statistics.
However, he told COVER he was trying to make the point that the figures should have been published with more detail, outlining why claims had been declined in order to present a more accurate picture to consumers.
He said: "The ABI has no problem with firms publishing their statistics. My point was that before we decide to do that, we should learn the lessons of what did and did not go well when publishing the CI statistics."
He added: "With CI, we didn't publish the information with enough detail so people could get the right messages. We created this label of one to five claims being declined intentionally. It was never true that these claims were declined unfairly but that seemed to have become the assumption."
Kirwan claimed the release of statistics for CI policies was flawed because they led to the public not realising that claims are turned down for a number of reasons including non-disclosure.
He said: "We created this label, and it may be hard to shift although it's no longer true and things are improving. It feels like it has done some damage and that is a learning point."
Kirwan said he believed that any future release of statistics should detail why claims have been turned down, rather than grouping everything together in order, to prevent their misinterpretation.
Agreeing with Kirwan, Peter Chadborn, principal of CBK Colchester, said: He said: "I'd have to agree with more information because one statistic on its own doesn't give the full story."
However, Chadborn argued that providers are already accompanying their statistics with more detail.
Kirwan said some good had come out of releasing the CI statistics and that doing so had demonstrated a willingness on behalf of the industry to be open about how they operate.
He added: "There's nothing like publishing something so it spurs people to take action. The question I have is that when the statistics were published, LifeSearch said it was one step back and two steps forward. Can't we just have the two steps forward?"
