Dealing with claims fairly

No matter what benefits are included in your Protection for Life plan, making a claim on your plan should be as smooth and straightforward as possible, especially as it may be at a difficult time.

Who to contact

We have dedicated claims teams to help make the process as simple as possible. Depending on the benefits in your plan, use one of the numbers below.

To register a critical illness or terminal illness claim, please call 0845 601 4839*
To register a life cover or lifetime cover claim, please call 0845 601 4179*
To register a premium protection claim, please call 0845 601 4839*

Alternatively, you can request a call back from one of our claims assessors and ask for a claim form.

We may record and monitor calls to help us improve our service.

Our claims history

Life Cover claims

We’ve paid out over £578m in Life Cover claims *

Facts about Life Cover claims in 2009*

The five main reasons for a Life Cover claim in 2009 were:

Cancer
Heart Related
Respiratory
Accident
Stroke

Average age of female life assured at claim 54 years **

Average age of male life assured at claim 55 years **

Average term of policy at claim 6 years and 9 months **

*Source: Scottish Widows based on the number of life cover claims paid out on Scottish Widows and Lloyds TSB plans from January 2000 to August 2009.

**Source: Scottish Widows, based on the number of life cover claims paid out on Scottish Widows and Lloyds TSB plans from September 2008 to August 2009 (excludes lifetime cover). The category ‘accident’ includes suicide cases.

Critical Illness claims

We’ve paid out over £240m in Critical Illness claims *

Facts about Critical Illness claims*

The five main reasons for a Critical Illness claim are:

Cancer
Heart related
Stroke
Multiple sclerosis
Children’s claims

Average age of female claimant 45 years

Average age of male claimant 48 years

Average term of policy at claim 5 years

You can help us with the claims process

We’ve paid over 21,030 claims in the past nine* years which means that many customers have benefited from the security of our policies. On occasion some claims may be turned down, but the decision to do this is never taken lightly. The two biggest reasons for claims being turned down are non-disclosure of relevant information on the application form and claims that don’t meet the policy definition.

To help ensure that a claim is dealt with quickly and efficiently, follow these simple steps.

Complete your application carefully and to the best of your knowledge and belief. If you’re not sure if something is relevant then always include it. It’s better to give too much information than too little.
If your circumstances change after you’ve applied, but before cover starts, make sure you let us know.
Make sure your cover is sufficient for your needs and you know what is and isn’t covered by your policy.

*Source: Scottish Widows based on the number of critical illness cover & life cover claims paid out on Scottish Widows & Lloyds TSB plans from January 2000 to August 2009 (October 2008 for Critical Illness claims). The data relates to Lloyds TSB claims paid out since January 2000 and Scottish Widows claims paid out since July 2002.