Top cause of life insurance and disability insurance claims for men and women
As part of Life Insurance Awareness week, the Financial Services Council (FSC) has released data that shows the gender difference for claims in life insurance.
The data reveals interesting insights into the health of the nation and contains data from 2019 about the most common causes of life insurance claims that reveal some of the biological differences between men and women.
KPMG on behalf of the FSC provides in-depth analysis of the causes of life insurance claims, particularly for Australians of working age – this data is reportedly unsurpassed anywhere else in the world for its granularity and timeliness.
The release shows :
- The top cause of death claims is cancer for both men and women. For men, it accounts for 39 per cent of all death claims, but for women it accounts for a huge 61 per cent, of which 29 per cent are breast cancer and itself the most common cause, followed by colon cancer (15 per cent) and lung cancer (14 per cent).
- The second most common cause for men is accidents, accounting for 20 per cent, whereas for women it’s the third most common cause at seven per cent of female deaths.
- For total permanent disability (TPD) claims, mental health disorders top the list for both men and women at 24 per cent and 27 per cent respectively. Once again, accidents come second for men at 17 per cent, but for women it’s a different story, with accidents down in fifth place at just 11 per cent.
- Income protection claims reveals further granularity about the differences between men and women. The top cause for both is accidents, but again we see men having relatively many more accidents than women at 38 per cent versus 28 per cent. It also tells a different story for mental health, which comes in second for women at 22 per cent, whereas for men it’s less than half that proportion at only 10 per cent
The data confirms that for working age Australians, cancer is by far the biggest killer and it’s even more deadly for women than for men. It shows that that men have significantly more accidents than women, and women have more mental health claims. See the FSC website for the full release.
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