"For us, claims are everything and we hope this report plays a role in providing confidence in our products and increasing trust in our industry."
- Katya MacLean, CEO of Guardian
In 2023, Guardian Financial Services (Guardian) paid 100% of Life & Terminal Illness claims and 92% of Critical Illness (CI) & Children’s CI claims, equating to 150 claims across its Life Protection, CI, Combined Life & CI, and Children’s CI business - 117 Premium Waiver claims were also paid.
Claim statistics for Guardian’s recently launched products such as Income Protection (IP) and Life Essentials aren’t included but will be published on completion of five years of trading.
Of the 31 Life claims paid, the highest payout was £460,769 with an average of £162,043. 71% of claimants were male and the average age at claim was 47 years old – the youngest was 27 and the oldest 64. Notably, 74% of Guardian’s Life Protection claims in 2023 used Payout Planner so the payout could bypass probate.
15 Terminal Illness claims were paid, equating to £2.5mn. With Guardian’s Life Protection, policyholders have an enhanced definition which means it not only pays out if the illness is expected to lead to death within twelve months but also if a policyholder is diagnosed with incurable stage 4 cancer, motor neurone disease, Parkinson-plus syndromes or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, irrelevant of their life expectancy.
This enhanced definition had a commendable impact on Guardian’s ability to pay claims when they were first received. Notably, 5 of the 14 cancer-related claims wouldn’t have been paid at the time of initial claim under an industry standard ‘twelve months to live’ definition.
CI claims accounted for 81 of the 150 claims paid in 2023, totalling £7.3mn, with a 50-50 divide between male and female policyholders. The average amount paid was £90,102 while the highest payout came in at £500k. The most common reason to claim was a recent cancer diagnosis (72%), followed by heart attacks (7%), and stroke (7%).
Guardian paid 23 Children’s CI claims, equating to £480,865. Guardian has the capacity to add Children’s CI to any adult policy rather than solely an adult CI plan. This flexibility was designed to help more families put protection in place for their children. Notably, 74% of Children’s CI claims were attached to an adult Life policy; 35% of claims were for a funeral payout and 17% were due to a recent cancer diagnosis.
Premium Waiver is included as standard on all Guardian policies – this was designed as a safety net for customers to avoid them cancelling their policies if times got tough. In 2023, Guardian paid 117 Premium Waiver claims, of which 74 were for maternity/paternity leave, followed by illness or injury (35), and unemployment (8). The average premium waived for claims admitted in 2023 was £53.80.
HALO is Guardian’s bespoke claims support service which provides claimants and their immediate family with access to additional medical assistance, counselling, legal services, and financial support. Overall, Guardian coordinated 32 referrals to RedArc, 11 referrals to Legacare, 5 referrals to Krysalis, and 5 offers of additional support.
“Publishing Guardian’s first claims report is a very special moment. It has now been over 5 years since we entered the protection market, and since day 1 our aim has been to design policies that provide certainty and support at claim,” explained Katya MacLean, CEO of Guardian.
She said: “For us, claims are everything and we hope this report plays a role in providing confidence in our products and increasing trust in our industry.”
“Publishing our first claims report is an important milestone but the thing I’m most proud of is how we’ve helped so many people. Our claims team works tirelessly to pay claims and support our customers when they need us most,” added Phil Deacon, Head of Claims at Guardian.
