IE - Irish insurance company says 20% of deaths linked to alcohol

16 February 2009. One in five accidental or sudden deaths claims paid last year by the Irish finance and insurance Company, Irish Life, involved alcohol in some shape or form. Overall, Irish Life paid out €16 million is respect of 167 accidental or sudden deaths and alcohol was a factor in some 20 per cent of these - the same level as in 2007. Almost half of all life-cover claims las year for people under 40 were the result of accidental or sudden deaths. Commenting on the above figures, Irish Life's Head of Underwriting and Claims, Martin Duffy, said that this was a 'worrying statistic and one that should be borne in mind by policymakers'. The insurer's figures for 2008 also showed that men in Ireland had seven times the level of heart-related specified illness claims that women did. Overall, cancer and heart-related disease accounted for 80 per cent of the more than 500 specified illness claims settled by Irish Life in 2008. An analysis of death claims paid out by Irish Life revealed that cancer accounted dor almost half (46 per cent) of the total of 1.335 claims paid in 2008, with heart-related conditions accounting for 22 per cent.