98 per cent: the number of claims accepted and paid to Aviva customers

October 15, 2018 (Toronto, ON) – New data from Aviva Canada completely dispels the widespread myth that insurance companies like to collect premium dollars from customers, but don’t pay customers’ insurance claims when they happen.

“People have the mistaken impression that we fight paying most claims, when the data shows the opposite is true,” said Bryant Vernon, Chief Claims Officer at Aviva Canada “The vast majority of claims we receive from our customers – 98 per cent in fact – are paid by Aviva Canada. We need to correct this misconception once and for all.”

98 percent – Aviva Canada’s claims pay out rate in 2017

The intention of the Aviva global claims data released today and available here is to build trust with customers by being completely transparent about how Aviva handles their claims.  In 2017, Aviva’s data shows*:

• Aviva Canada paid out 98 per cent of claims received in 2017;
• The dollar value of claims paid to Aviva Canada customers in 2017 is $4 billion.

Public trust in insurance companies is very low

Insurers rank lower in net trust than Fintech startups, utility companies and both local and regional banks. In a 2017 consumer survey, only 15 per cent of Canadian respondents trust insurance companies to be ‘honest’ and ‘fair’.

Aviva Canada is the only general insurance company in Canada to release the percentage of claims it has paid out and the total dollar value of those claims, but Aviva is not stopping there.

“We’re not just reporting on our claims statistics, we’re also actively working to improve our consumer claims process to ensure that 100 per cent of legitimate claims are paid efficiently and promptly,” said Vernon.  “There’s a remaining 2 per cent of customers who had their claims rejected in 2017– some due to lack of coverage, misunderstanding their policy or cases where documents could not be provided to process the claim. We want to encourage customers to understand their coverage and what is needed to submit a claim.” 

Click here for Aviva’s Global Claims data.

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Media Contact:
Priscilla Wong
Mobile: 647 208 7523
Email: priscilla.y.wong@aviva.com

*Data calculated by dividing all paid and rejected claims by the total number of claims received between 1 January and 31 December 2017. The figure includes all insurance product lines across all of Aviva’s businesses and excludes benefits and pensions, which have a payout ratio of 100%. It also excludes invalid or incomplete claims, such as instances where claims were opened in error, abandoned or withdrawn by customers or opened by third parties.