Aegon: HUF 700 Million Paid in Damages for COVID-19

The amount of claims paid out due to Covid exceeded HUF 700 million in Aegon Insurance's life and accident insurance portfolio. As a result of the coronavirus, the terms and conditions of the insurance policies have been significantly modified in some areas for the benefit of the customers.

A press release by the company says this amount piad out represents a payment of around 1,600 claims, of which, unfortunately, 1,003 were paid out by the insurer due to death. Covid deaths account for the vast majority of the amount paid out. The remainder was paid by Aegon for hospitalisation and sick leave.

The pandemic has never been an exclusion for Aegon life insurance policies. Insurers generally had a 6-month waiting period, which means that this is the time that must elapse after the policy has been taken out before the sum insured under their life insurance policy is paid out if the insured dies. Aegon has reduced this waiting period to 30 days in the event of death caused by Covid, subject to certain conditions.

A specific feature of accident insurance is that a pandemic was an exclusion factor for most types of policies, i.e. in such cases insurance companies could be exempted from paying claims. The pandemic exclusion condition was lifted by Aegon last year, so that accident insurance policies now pay out to policyholders in the event of Covid-19 illness. As the measure to suspend the exclusion is a change in the general terms and conditions of the contract in favour of the customer, the measure is also valid for the existing portfolio, now more than a year old.