The latest in a four-part series studying the impact COVID-19 had the Canadian life insurance industry, a new report from the Canadian Institute of Actuaries examines whether COVID-19 is a significant cause of death for insurance claims in Canada.
“This report series examines the impact of COVID-19 on Canada’s life insurance industry, using key findings to help decision makers better understand and manage risk,” they write.
Entitled Report 4: COVID-19 Canadian Insurance Industry Monthly Aggregate Data Analysis, the report says in 2020 and 2021, individual insurance claims saw an increase when compared to 2019 due to COVID-19, with noticeable impacts in both the first and second waves of the pandemic. “During the third wave, the overall increase in individual insurance claims was lower.”
Overall, COVID-19 related claims peaked at 11 per cent of all individual insurance claims in April 2020 and 6.8 per cent of group insurance claims in January 2021.
“Although not all companies were able to capture cause of death, there were a total of 3,244 reported individual claims identified with COVID-19 as cause of death in 2020, and a further 1,678 reported from January 2021 to May 2021,” they write.
