• Malignant Cancer remains the most common cause of specified illness and life cover claims in 2007
• Alcohol a contributory factor in 1 in 6 accident-related Claims
• Irish Life pays in excess of €78 million in Death and Specified Illness payments in 2007

Malignant cancers remain by far the most common cause of specified illness and death claims in Ireland. This is according to the latest analysis by Irish Life of the total life and specified illness cover payments made to customers in 2007. Malignant forms of cancer once again accounted for 60% of the total, with heart-related illness accounting for a further 20% of claims.

An analysis of 2007 Death Claims also reflects the dominance of cancer and heart-related conditions with cancer accounting for 47% of the total of 1,055 claims and heart-related conditions accounting for approximately 22%. Adult accident claims made up 8% of the total claims. Of this 23% were accident-related claims while Alcohol was a contributory factor in 16% of all accident claims.

Irish Life is the largest life and specified illness cover provider in the country.

Specified Illness Claims

• 2006 was the first year when malignant cancers exceeded heart-related Specified Illness Claims and this pattern was maintained in 2007. There was however, a notable increase in claims relating to Multiple Sclerosis with 19 in 2007 compared to 7 in 2006. The majority of Multiple Sclerosis claims were made by adult females (11 claims out of 19).
• In total Irish Life paid out in respect of 239 malignant cancer-related claims, with 53% of these representing female adults. In contrast, however, males made up 90% of heart-related Specified Illness claims – 70 out of a total of 77 – maintaining the pattern of previous years. Males also accounted for almost three-quarters of stroke-related claims – 16 out of a total of 22.
• The survey of 392 Specified Illness Claims shows that Irish Life paid out a total of €24.7 million in 2007 – or an average of more than €63,000 per claim. Average specified claim amount up 14% on 2006.
• The number of claims was up on 2006 when 361 claims were paid with total payments of €20.1 million, or an average of €55,753 for each claim.

Death Claims

Irish Life paid €54 million in respect of 1,055 death claims last year – or an average of just over €51,000 per claim

The largest single death payment was just over €1 million in respect of a 50-year old male professional who died of pancreatic cancer. While the largest single payment in respect of a female was for €467,000 in respect of a professional who died of breast cancer.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Martin Duffy, Head of Underwriting at Irish Life said: “Last year we paid out more than €78 million in death and specified illness claims. Cancer still remains the greatest single killer and unfortunately the number of cancer-related Specified Illness Claims continues to rise.

The number of heart-related claims however has continued to fall. This may be due to earlier diagnosis of the condition with people undergoing more regular health screens and taking the appropriate steps to reduce the likelihood of their being incapacitated, even temporarily, by a heart attack or other related conditions” he said.

Duffy added that the fact that 16% of accident-related death claims were related to alcohol “reflects a worrying trend” if this were to continue.