Guardian’s 2023 claims report: a milestone worth celebrating

At Guardian, we’ve made no secret that we designed our policies to provide certainty at point of claim. So, we’re delighted, over 5 years on from launch, to release our first claims report, after paying out over £15 million for 150 claims. In this article, we’ll highlight some of the key points from our report, which you can read in full on our website.

In 2023, we paid 100% of our Life Protection claims.

Yep, 100%. That’s not a percentage you see in many claims reports, but you’ll see it twice in ours.

74% of these life claims were paid using Payout Planner, our built-in beneficiary nomination, which ensures the payout doesn’t form part of the policy holders estate, isn’t subject to IHT and bypasses probate. Considering probate can take up to 11 months¹, Payout Planner makes sure grieving families aren’t left waiting or risking loss under intestacy rules. This feature proved invaluable throughout 2023, given that on average claims paid using Payout Planner saved on average 7 months waiting for probate compared with those that weren’t paid using Payout Planner or trust.

We paid 100% of terminal illness claims.

There’s that percentage again.

WE’RE DELIGHTED TO HAVE PAID EVERY SINGLE TERMINAL ILLNESS CLAIM.

Uniquely our Life Protection terminal illness definition not only pays out if the illness is expected to lead to death within 12 months, but also if a policyholder is diagnosed with incurable stage 4 cancer, motor neurone disease, Parkinson-plus syndromes and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease regardless of their life expectancy.

5 of the 14 cancer claims we paid under our terminal illness definition in 2023 wouldn’t have met the standard industry definition at the time we paid them. That means 26% of the terminal illness claims we paid wouldn’t have been paid out elsewhere at the time we paid them.

We paid 92% of critical illness claims.

In 2023, we paid our first claim under our cover upgrade promise – which checks claims against both the definitions at purchase and any improved definitions for new customers and pays out if the claim is valid under either. The policyholder himself said “Guardian’s cover upgrade promise was the only reason my claim was paid”.

We paid 92% of Children’s Critical Illness Protection claims.

We offer policyholders the flexibility to add Children’s Critical Illness Protection to any type of adult cover at any time. 74% of the children’s critical illness claims we paid were linked to adult life-only cover.

In 2023, 117 customers benefited from our Premium Waiver – which comes as standard on all our covers, regardless of age, occupation, or activities because we believe it’s invaluable. It’s not underwritten, so we don’t apply exclusions or loadings.

On our Life Protection, Critical Illness Protection, Combined Life and Critical Illness Protection and Income Protection, we’ll not only waive premiums if they’re too ill to work and have lost 25% or more of their net income, we also waive them for up to 6 months for maternity/paternity leave or if they involuntarily lose their job and their
policy has been in force for more than 12 months. 63% of the premiums waived were for maternity/paternity – and in 5 of those cases we waived premiums for both parents. It’s rare claims reports include information on where we’ve supported families at a happy time, so we’re delighted to be able to do that.

We also want to tell you about the few claims we didn’t pay, because we believe in being completely transparent – which were 7 adult critical illness claims and 2 children’s critical illness claims. Of the critical illness claims we didn’t pay, 6 of those were rejected due to misrepresentation. This is a critical issue we address in detail in our report. By highlighting these cases, we hope to raise awareness around misrepresentation because there are no winners when we find ourselves unable to pay a claim. We also include a few tips on how to help make sure every application is accurate in the report.

And of course, HALO, our extraordinary free claims support service, is available at point of claim on all our covers. HALO provides claimants and their immediate family members access to additional medical treatments, counselling and legal services, and financial support when they need it most.

That’s just the highlights, you can find the full report here

Guardian Financial Services is an appointed representative of Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited. All products are provided by Scottish Friendly.

Source

1. UK Parliament, Justice Committee launched new inquiry into probate amid concerns over delays and consumer protection, November 2023.