Cardiovascular disease and cancer topped the list of life insurance claims paid out in 2023 by financial services group Momentum’s life insurance business, cementing a return to the patterns seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Covid-19 is largely a thing of the past. We did not see any Covid-19 death claims in 2023,” said Momentum head of life insurance marketing George Kolbe. “It was a year with no extraordinary events, no pandemic or natural disasters, and the claims we see are those we expected,” he said.
Momentum Retail Life Insurance paid out a total of R6.53bn in claims in 2023, a 5.5% increase on the year before. The lion’s share (R4bn) were death claims, followed by critical illness (R839m), disability (R486m) and income protection (R258m).
More than two thirds of the death claims (68%) were for men, and the top two killers were cardiovascular conditions (31%) and cancer (26%), followed by deaths due to unnatural causes such as car accidents and gunshot injuries, which accounted for 14% of the claims in this category.
Cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of death for men, while for women cardiovascular disease and cancer took an equal toll.
More than 90% of the terminal illness death claims were due to cancer, reflecting the devastating effect of the disease.
Momentum paid out its largest death claim last year to date of R117.2m for a business owner who died from an accidental gunshot injury. The payout spanned eight different business assurance policies.
The trends in death claims reported by Momentum are broadly in line with other life insurers such as Sanlam and Discovery, which have also highlighted the high toll taken by cardiovascular disease.
Earlier this week Sanlam released data on its 2023 claims experience, which showed cardiovascular incidents were the biggest cause of claims, including those for death and severe illness. It said cardiovascular claims for men were accelerating, but remained relatively constant for women. “We continue to fail to address the key causes of diseases of lifestyle, so, sadly, we’re likely to see cardiovascular incidents exponentially increase in the future. Obesity remains a major challenge in our country, with type II diabetes linked to this,” Sanlam’s chief medical officer Marion Morkel said.
In April, Discovery Life said cardiovascular conditions were the leading category of death claims for men, and the second biggest for women. It said Covid-19 accounted for only 9% of its 2023 death claims, compared to 42% in 2021.
Momentum said many claimants who died due to a critical illness in 2023 did not have critical illness or disability cover, suggesting clients may not have sufficient cover to protect them from the financial burden of severe illness. More than 80% of Momentum’s clients who died in 2023 did not have critical illness cover with the company.
“That is a concern for us,” said Kolbe. “Financial advisers think of investments and getting [clients] to retirement age. But there is also a need to focus on risk benefits. Putting away money for retirement without critical illness cover can destroy [a person’s] retirement,” he said.
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