The insurer said life and over-50s plans made up most of the claims for retail customers with individual policies, with nearly 14,000 payouts amounting to £527m.
Terminal illness cover claims reached £161m, with an average payout of more than £125,000, the insurer said.
The shortest time for which anyone held a life cover policy before it paid out was just one day, while the top reason for life, terminal illness and critical illness cover paying out was cancer.
Workplace access
The insurer said it had paid out £396m in group protection claims for workplaces and over 231,000 people had contacted its health and wellbeing services, and it had helped a number of employees return to work.
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The insurer said it supported nine in 10 (89%) employees to enable them to successfully return to work within the first year of absence, up from 78% in 2024, and more than eight in 10 (81%) were supported to return to work within the deferred period, up from 74% in 2024. The number of vocational rehabilitation assessments supporting GIP employees, provided by L&G’s in-house team of multi-disciplinary specialists, increased from 4,266 in 2024 to 5,007 in 2025.
James Shattock, managing director for protection and retail retirement at L&G, said: “Protection is more than paying a claim, it’s about supporting individuals and families when they need us most, keeping them protected, and helping them recover afterwards.
“We’re committed to continuously improving the claims journey by investing in our people, processes and digital solutions, so it’s efficient, transparent and flexible for customers during difficult times. For example, our fully digitised claims journey is already making a positive difference, allowing customers and their loved ones to start, pause and resume a claim whenever they’re ready.
“Our Group Income Protection return to work outcomes have also gone from strength to strength over the past decade, thanks to our proven case management approach. This aligns closely with the recommendations in the government’s Keep Britain Working report, which we are proud to support.”
L&G said in January that it had improved its underwriting process for its retail customers to make it easier to buy protection. Broad questions have now been divided into smaller, more specific health and lifestyle questions, while family medical history questions specify ‘full-blood’ relatives, reducing the likelihood of errors and manual referrals.
The updated process is also expected to help L&G Retail Protection understand the needs of its customers better, so that when a claim is received, the policy accurately supports their needs and circumstances.
