The insurance claims that are least likely to be paid out

The UK’s biggest insurer has revealed that income protection and travel insurance are the least likely claims to be paid.

Aviva said 89pc of travel insurance and income protection claims were paid in 2017, compared with the average payout rate across all claims of 96pc. 

Motor insurance claims were the most likely to be successful. Aviva paid out in 99.3pc of these cases last year. This total excludes third-party claims, such as personal injury claims for whiplash, of which Aviva rejects one in eight for being fraudulent.

The insurer said income protection claims are most likely to be rejected because customers’ illnesses were not serious enough for the policy to pay out. 

Income claims are often turned down because customers do not tell the whole truth about their lifestyles when taking out the policies.

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Aviva said the main reason travel claims are turned down is because the issue at stake is not covered by the policy. Travel insurance policies tend to cover basic issues as standard then require the customer to pay more to cover extra risks.

Another common reason for rejecting a travel claim is that a travel delay is not long enough to trigger a payout.

Aviva said it paid out £10m a day in claims in 2017 and that it wanted to challenge the belief of 55pc of consumers that insurers try to avoid paying claims.

Andy Briggs, of Aviva, said this was a myth that could end up being harmful to the industry. “If people have a sense that insurance is not going to pay out, they won’t bother buying it,” he said.

Aviva repaired 120,000 cars during 2017, enough to fill the M25 completely.

The insurer added that the carpets it replaced last year under home insurance claims would cover 11 football pitches.