Pioneer and Skandia set example to industry
Pioneer and Skandia have used the launch of their claims statistics for income protection (IP) and critical illness (CI) products to call on the industry for greater transparency when dealing with intermediaries and consumers.
Pioneer, which specialises in IP products, revealed it had paid out 96% of its IP claims in the last year while Skandia said it had paid 82.5% of CI claims during the same period.
Andy Chapman, chief executive of Pioneer, said future success of the IP industry was reliant on openness across the entire sector. He said: "One of the keys to future success is to be open and transparent with intermediaries and consumers. Claims are the acid test of any IP policy so providing confidence and assurance around this area can only be positive."
Skandia, which had a below-average declined rate for non-disclosure of 3%, echoed this stance.
Ian Brown, head of protection marketing at the provider, said: "We support the principle of transparency in the market and believe it is important in enabling advisers to make recommendations, and clients to make informed choices."
Skandia revealed breast cancer was the most prevalent form of the disease, accounting for 28% of cancer claims which made up 50% of all CI claims.
Other popular causes listed by Skandia for claiming on CI policies were death (16%), heart attack (12%) and heart surgery (7%), and the average age of a claimant was 48.
