Almost 70% of fatal crash claims involve males

ALMOST 70% of fatal road accident insurance claims involve the death of a male motorist, many of them in their teens or early 20s, according to a survey conducted by Irish Life.

A similar percentage of all accidental death claims received in the last 12 months alone were in respect of the deaths of male clients.

One in six accident-related death claims paid out by the life assurer over the past five years in respect of people under the age of 40 was the result of road traffic accidents, a detailed study of its claims book reveals.

“Sixteen per cent of all death claims paid on lives aged 40 or under were the result of a road accident and these are the single biggest cause of death among under 40s,” said the company’s head of claims, Martin Duffy.

“Also, 15% of child death claims were the result of road accidents,” he said.

Over the last five years, Irish Life has paid €16.2 million in respect of 159 road traffic accidents. While road traffic accidents overall accounted for less than 3% of the total number of claims over that period, there was a much higher level of claims involving road traffic accidents among people under the age of 40.

Overall, the average age for road traffic accident death claims was 41 for men and 47 for women, and the average amount paid out was €147,121 for men and €94,237 for women.

Irish Life paid out 20 claims in the past five years where the cause of death was a workplace accident and all of these claims involved men. Farmers accounted for the highest proportion of workplace accidents — 30% of the total, the Irish Life report reveals.

Men accounted for more than two-thirds of the total number of claims for accidental death made to Irish Life in 2010.

The largest single death payment was just over €1m in respect of a 50-year-old male professional who died of pancreatic cancer. The largest single payment in respect of a female was for €467,000 in respect of a professional who died of breast cancer.