Income protection (IP) provider British Friendly has announced it paid out 96.27% of claims during 2013.
The remainder of claims were rejected for not being eligible for consideration (1.65%). Meanwhile 2.08% of claims that had been initially considered eligible for consideration were not accepted.
A breakdown of these claims revealed British Friendly rejected 8 claims for non-disclosure, 5 claims for financial or medical evidence not revealed, 4 claims for late notification and 2 claims for insufficient loss of earnings.
Meanwhile, for those deemed ineligible for consideration -12 claims excluded a condition, 2 did not pass the deferred period, and one was invalid as the client was unemployed.
The firm launched its first intermediated product in 2011 and launched its first simplified policy in July 2013.
Mark Myers, CEO of British Friendly (pictured) said: "The moment of truth with any policy is whether it will pay out when you need it. Our strong track record of paying claims continued in 2013 paying 96% of all claims received. Our consistently strong claims record underpins our ethos of looking to pay a claim wherever possible, even in situations where the claim could arguably have been declined."
Mark Dennison, owner of adviser firm Lightblue UK said: "We continue to welcome the publication of claims statistics for Income Protection. It is great news to see so many claims being paid across the market for this essential product."
