This article is from page 23 of the 2008-02-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 23 JPG
MALIGNANT cancers remain by far the most common cause of specified illness and death claims in Clare, ac- cording to the latest analysis of pay- ments made to customers of the Irish Life insurance company last year.
The analysis found that malignant forms of cancer accounted for 48 per cent of Clare death claims while heart-related illness accounted for 21 per cent of death claims in the coun- ty. This was roughly in line with the national rates of 47 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.
Accidental death accounted for 17 per cent of Clare death claims which was over twice the national rate of 8 per cent.
The average age for death claims in Clare was 59 while the average age for specified illness claims was 53 compared with the national averages of 58 and 47.
The average age for death claims in Clare males was 61 while the average for females was 56. The average age for specified illness claims in Clare males was 52 while the average age for female claims was 55.
Commenting on the results of the survey, Martin Duffy, Head of Un- derwriting at Irish Life, said that the company paid out more than €78 million in death and specified illness
claims last year.
“Cancer still remains the greatest single killer in Clare and unfortu- nately the number of cancer-related specified illness claims continues to rise nationally,” he said.
Mr Duffy added that the fact that 16 per cent of accident-related death claims were related to alcohol “re- flects a worrying trend” if this were to continue.
2006 was the first year when malig- nant cancers exceeded heart-related specified illness claims and this pat- tern was maintained in 2007.
The national survey of 392 speci- fied illness claims shows that Irish Life paid out a total of €24.7 million in 2007 — or an average of more than €63,000 per claim
The company paid €54 million in respect of 1,055 death claims nation- ally last year — or an average of just over €51,000 per claim.
The largest single death payment was just over €1 million in respect of a 50-year-old male professional who died of pancreatic cancer while the largest single payment in respect of a female was for €467,000 in respect of a professional who died of breast cancer.
An analysis of National 2007 Death Claims also revealed that alcohol was a contributory factor in 16 per cent of all accident claims.