Discovery Life says Covid-19 has been the leading cause of death among its clients this year until August, saying it had overtaken heart disease and cancer.
The company releases a summary of its insurance claims data each year and used the 2020 claims release to highlight Covid-19’s more recent effect on fatalities.
Discovery Life CEO Riaan van Reenen said the “annual claims analysis comes at a time when the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on life insurers is becoming clearer”.
Covid-19 has dramatically influenced Discovery Life’s death claims experience, with it now overtaking cancer, heart and artery disease as the primary cause of death among Discovery Life clients.
“Over the previous nine years, heart and artery diseases caused an average of 27% of deaths each year, compared to 57% of all deaths being attributed to Covid-19 for 2021 up to August,” Van Reenen said.
Covid-19 related payouts that began in 2020 are expected to reach R6.2bn by the end of June 2022.
The total life insurance claims for all causes paid out by Discovery Life in 2020 equalled R4.7bn. To date, 80% of the Life clients over the age of 60 have been vaccinated and 71% of all clients have had at least one shot of a vaccine.
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