APRA and ASIC have released their life insurance claims data for 2020. This means that claim acceptance rates and average claim processing times are now available on an aggregate and individual company basis for the last three years.
Claims Paying Trends
Certain trends have become evident over the period 2018 to 2020.
Firstly, claims acceptance rates for policies distributed via financial advisers/life insurance brokers have been consistently higher than for policies sold direct to the public. In 2020, 96.4% of life insurance claims were accepted for adviser/broker policies, compared to only 90.0% for direct policies. For income protection the difference was 94% claims accepted for adviser/broker policies, compared to only 85% for direct policies.
Secondly, compared to when the statistics were first released for 2018, there has generally been an improvement in the time insurers have taken to finalise claims. For life insurance policies, the average claim time has improved from 3.2 months in 2018 to 1.5 months in 2020. For TPD insurance policies, the average claim time has similarly improved from 8.3 months to 6.8 months.
Thirdly, the products which have the best claims acceptance rates continue to be life insurance and income protection policies, with 96.4% and 94% of all claims accepted respectively. Similarly, the products with the lowest claims acceptance rates have continued to be trauma insurance, with a claims accepted rate of 85.7%, and TPD insurance at 85.7%.
Individual Company Claims Performance
What has changed over the course of the last three years is the insurers who have been the best at paying claims.
Insurance Watch has used the APRA/ASIC statistics (for adviser/broker policies only) to determine the three top insurers for accepting claims overall in each year.
Top Insurance Companies for accepting claims
| 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
| CommInsure | MLC | MLC |
| ClearView | Zurich | Asteron |
| Asteron | CommInsure | AMP |
The same methodology has been used to determine the three insurers who have been the fastest at paying claims in each year:
The same methodology has been used to determine the three insurers who have been the fastest at paying claims in each year:
Fastest Claims Paying Insurance Companies
| 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
| MLC | TAL | Asteron |
| TAL | Zurich | TAL |
| Zurich | MLC | MLC |
The 2020 claims performance for individual life insurance companies in each product category is shown below:
2020 LIFE INSURANCE CLAIMS
| Company | Life Insurance Claims Accepted % | Average Claim Time (months) |
| AIA | 94.2 | 1.8 |
| AMP | 95.9 | 1.0 |
| Asteron | 98.3 | 2.1 |
| ClearView | n/a | n/a |
| CommInsure | 97.5 | 1.6 |
| MLC | 93.9 | 1.5 |
| OnePath | 98.3 | 1.9 |
| TAL | 96.9 | 1.1 |
| Westpac/BT | 98.1 | 1.8 |
| Zurich | 97.5 | 1.4 |
| Industry Average | 96.4 | 1.5 |
2020 TPD INSURANCE CLAIMS
| Company | TPD Insurance Claims Accepted % | Average Claim Time (months) |
| AIA | 70.8 | 11.0 |
| AMP | 85.2 | 5.7 |
| Asteron | 83.0 | 6.1 |
| ClearView | n/a | n/a |
| CommInsure | 92.3 | 7.6 |
| MLC | 84.2 | 5.7 |
| OnePath | 76.0 | 8.6 |
| TAL | 68.0 | 7.6 |
| Westpac/BT | 76.7 | 9.1 |
| Zurich | 82.1 | 5.7 |
| Industry Average | 81.5 | 6.8 |
2020 TRAUMA INSURANCE CLAIMS
| Company | Trauma Insurance Claims Accepted % | Average Claim Time (months) |
| AIA | 85.9 | 1.8 |
| AMP | 81.1 | 1.6 |
| Asteron | 85.5 | 1.4 |
| ClearView | 95.5 | 1.1 |
| CommInsure | 81.7 | 2.2 |
| MLC | 86.0 | 1.2 |
| OnePath | 86.9 | 2.0 |
| TAL | 83.8 | 1.4 |
| Westpac/BT | 92.9 | 1.3 |
| Zurich | 85.0 | 1.3 |
| Industry Average | 85.7 | 1.6 |
2020 INCOME PROTECTION INSURANCE CLAIMS
| Company | Income Protection Claims Accepted % | Average Claim Time (months) |
| AIA | 91.0 | 2.0 |
| AMP | 94.7 | 1.9 |
| Asteron | 96.5 | 1.3 |
| ClearView | 91.9 | 2.2 |
| CommInsure | 94.5 | 1.4 |
| MLC | 95.3 | 1.2 |
| OnePath | 93.4 | 1.3 |
| TAL | 92.3 | 1.2 |
| Westpac/BT | 95.7 | 1.7 |
| Zurich | 94.6 | 1.5 |
| Industry Average | 94.0 | 1.5 |
These results can be viewed graphically at Claims Statistics – Life Insurance Claims Statistics – All the Facts and Figures. For more information about these insurance companies see our Life Insurance Company Comparison Table