COVER Excellence Awards 2020
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Introduction
Who are the judges?
The judginG process
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Leading by example
Unable to meet in person, we still pulled out all the stops to celebrate the leading providers and intermediaries in the protection and health insurance industry at the COVER Excellence Awards this year. We had more than 220 entries , across 27 categories – including three new awards for 2020 – and the standard was exceptional. Beamed to your desktops as a video ceremony at the end of our digital summit in November, we have reviewed all the winners and Highly Commended entries in this online special, plus spotlighted a selection of the key winners with interviews and articles exploring the reasons why they won. We caught up with The Exeter’s Steve Bryan and Aegon’s Stephen Crosbie, who took prizes for Best Income Protection and Best Business Protection respectively. Guardian CEO Katya Maclean talks us through the thinking behind its award-winning critical illness proposition, and I had an in-depth conversation about the client case study that saw Drewberry’s Samantha Haffenden-Angear win the Proud to Protect Award in association with Aviva. There’s a chance to meet the judges below and across the eBook you will find video interviews that get the (remote) reaction from key people shortly after receiving their award. We hope you enjoy it and find it insightful. Hopefully next year we can celebrate in person…
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AWARD CATEGORIES
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alan Lakey
Director, CIExpert
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alan knowles
Managing director, Cura Financial Services
Andrew wibberley
Director, Alea Risk
Emma Thomson
Product strategist, British Friendly
Claire ginnelly
Managing director, Premier Choice Group
Angela davidson
Founder, Passion For Protection
Karla Edwards
Family Protection Specialist
Justin Harper
Head of protection marketing & external affairs, LV=
johnny timpson
Access champion, Cabinet Office
Rob harvey
Head of protection advice, Drewberry
Naomi Greatorex
Director, Heath Protection Solutions
Monica garcia
Director, MGC
MelLissa Collett
Professional standards director, Chartered Insurance Institute (CII)
Matthew Chapman
Protection expert, Plus Financial Group
Lucy brown
Head of protection, L&C Mortgages
Steve Casey
Marketing director, Square Health
Roy McLoughlin
Associate director, Cavendish Ware
Roshani Hill
Assistant director, head of protection & health, Association of British Insurers
Stuart Scullion
Chair, AMII
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WELCOME CATegories/winners Protecting Income first Critical thinking Getting back to business Proud to protecT Watch the video
Daren Boys
Protection portfolio distribution director, Aviva
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Adam Saville, COVER Editor
the 2020 awards
And the winners are…
Click on a category to reveal the winner
Find the winner
provider awards
Best Individual Income Protection
Best Business Protection *New for 2020
Employee Benefits Intermediary of the Year Winner: Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing One of the market’s leading firms, picked for its dedication to diversity & inclusion. Highly Commended: EBCam For its focus on SME education and progressive approach to wellbeing.
Best Group Income Protection
Customer Service Award Winner: Future Proof For a really strong entry that impressively highlighted its structure process and offered an exceptional case study. Highly Commended: Caspian Insurance Praised for its LGBTQ+ Foundation in particular.
Best Individual Life Insurance Winner: AIG Life Described as “market-leading” by one judge, this insurer, another said, has “transformed the conversation” around added value services with its Smart Health offering.
Intermediary awards
Best Intermediary Promotion of Protection/Health
Best Individual Critical Illness
Best Group Critical Illness
Best Protection Platform *New for 2020
Best Technology Provider
Rising Star
Best Cashplan
Best Group Health Insurance
Best Individual Health Insurance
Best Added Value Service (Third Party)
Best Added Value Service (Provider)
Best New Product – Innovation Award
Protection Intermediary of the Year
Best Specialist Intermediary
Small Intermediary of the Year
Proud to Protect Award in association with Aviva *New for 2020
individual award
Best Overall Intermediary
Best Healthcare Intermediary
Best Promotion of Protection
Best Individual Income Protection Winner: The Exeter For providing financial support for self-isolation claims at the beginning of lockdown and keeping fully open for business when the pandemic struck in March. Click here to find out more Highly Commended: Shepherds Friendly For its positive internal culture and for clearly punching above its weight.
Best Healthcare Intermediary Winner: Assured Futures The judge praised its “consumer engagement” and its mobile first insurer page also set it apart from the others. Highly Commended: Lifepoint Healthcare For going the extra mile, good product knowledge and acting in their clients' best interests.
Best Business Protection Winner: Aegon The winning insurer has an inclusive range of business protection products that offer “flexibility” to advisers and “understand the needs of clients”. Click here for more Highly Commended: Legal & General For educating the market and raising adviser awareness.
Employee Benefits Intermediary of the Year
Best Group Income Protection Winner: AIG Life For its excellent marketing, focus on prevention and disruptive approach, one judge called it “one step ahead” of the rest.
Customer Service Award
Best Individual Life Insurance
Best Individual Critical Illness Winner: Guardian For its innovative and clever approach to simple condition wordings, which improve the probability of a positive claim outcome for customers. Click here to find out more
Protection Intermediary of the Year Winner: Drewberry Provided excellent communication during Covid upheaval, has shown really high engagement with added value services promotion and brilliant client feedback. Highly Commended: Heath Protection Solutions A one-woman-band, for her strong submission which illustrates her wider work in the market as well as an exceptional approach to advice.
Best Group Critical Illness Winner: Aviva Excellent child cover, good range of extra services and initiatives such as Project Teddy really made this insurer stand out.
Best Specialist Intermediary Winner: Cura Financial Services A leading specialist in its field, with its unfading dedication to improving access to insurance for those with pre-existing medical conditions, its inclusive focus on ‘quirky’ lives and for constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible when it comes to staff training and considerate customer care in the protection advice market. Highly Commended: Moneysworth Offered impressive results and strong case studies.
Best Protection Platform Winner: iPipeline Produced by a top protection technology provider, the SSG Digital solution has been picked for its wide-reaching and market-leading approach. Highly Commended: Legal & General For its unique approach to LLP features, such as historic online trusts.
Small Intermediary of the Year Winner: Moneysworth A firm that despite its size has made a massive impact by helping to pioneer access to insurance for those with serious mental illness. Highly Commended: Vita For its good customer engagement and strong claims record.
Best Technology Provider Winner: UnderwriteMe Its “ground-breaking” approach to underwriting technology has taken access to insurance distribution to a whole new level. Highly Commended: PRIMIS Mortgage Network – Toolbox For showing impressive improvements to its intermediary support service as well as great engagement.
Proud to Protect Award in association with Aviva Winner: Samantha Haffenden-Angear, Drewberry Click here to find out why Proud to Protect LifeSaver – Special judges award Winner: David Holley, Holley Protect Highly Commended: Christine Faraj, Caspian Insurance
Rising Star Winner: Alison Esson, AIG Life Described as a “cracking entry”, this individual is clearly tenacious and driven. Her personal and responsible approach was instrumental in bringing this year’s biggest added value benefits launch to market.
Best Cashplan Winner: Health Shield For branching out into the health and wellbeing space, strong intermediary support and for its excellent response to Covid.
Best Group Health Insurance Winner: Bupa Described by one judge as the “stand out” insurer in this category – its response to Covid was described as “brilliant” and “clear”, while its continued focus on mental health also received plaudits. Highly Commended: Equipsme For pushing boundaries with its affordable approach to group health insurance, especially for SMEs.
Best Individual Health Insurance Winner: Bupa One judge contested that “no other insurer can beat it” in this category - describing its service to intermediary clients as “excellent”. Innovations such as its Rapid Cardiac Assessment are truly ground-breaking. Highly Commended: Vitality For raising awareness, adapting to lockdown and changing the way consumers engage with their health insurance policies.
Best Added Value Service (Third Party) Winner: CBT Clinics Described as a “brilliant entry” that illustrates an organisation removing barriers and providing an impressive range of truly inclusive mental health services, rehab and intermediary support. Highly Commended: Medical Solutions For stepping up with its virtual GP services at a time of need.
Best Added Value Service (Provider) Winner: AIG Life For leading the way with its impressive approach to additional care services following the launch of Smart Health. Highly Commended: Guardian For its holistic HALO approach that’s simple to understand. Highly Commended: British Friendly For its wide-ranging suite of mutual benefits.
Best New Product – Innovation Award Winner: Square Health At a time when face-to-face nurse screenings were not possible due to social distancing restrictions, this health tech firm moved fast to come up with a truly innovative way to support the underwriting process – one that the judges hope will be with us for the long-haul. Highly Commended: Cirencester Friendly – Children’s Critical Illness Support For its impressive hybrid approach to income protection, with its children’s critical illness cover. Highly Commended: Legal & General For its rental protection plan.
Best Promotion of Protection Winner: AIG Life For a really impressive marketing campaign involving the All Blacks that had brilliant engagement stats and a powerful message. Highly Commended: Protection Review – ProtectX For its creative and inspired approach to an online protection event, which achieved great engagement.
Best Overall Intermediary Winner: Roy McLoughlin, Cavendish Ware This protection adviser is an example to us all. His client case study, presented at
a single awards entry. Through his role as the chair of Protection Distributors Group and involvement with the Access to Insurance Working Group, he has worked tirelessly to promote the importance of inclusive protection distribution, playing an instrumental role in pretty much every important industry development of the past 12 months.
Insurance Person of the Year
Insurance Person of the Year Winner: Alan Knowles, Cura Financial Services The list of achievements for this intermediary is far too long to include in
the COVER Protection & Health Summit last year involving high-profile Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas set the standard for what true, holistic financial advice should look like. His work as co-chair of the Income Protection Task Force and NoVAD campaign has consistently gone above and beyond to make the protection market a better place, spreading good practice and words of positivity to fellow advisers, providers and clients alike.
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WELCOME CATegories and winners Protecting income first Critical thinking Getting back to business Proud to protect case study Watch the video
Best Intermediary Promotion of Protection/Health Winner: PRIMIS Mortgage Network This adviser network has stepped up its training and worked hard to raise the profile of protection in the mortgage market with excellent intermediary support and adviser-focused events. Highly Commended: Matthew Chapman, Plus Financial Group An individual adviser delivering his fresh, enthusiastic approach to income protection advice using social media.
COVER Awards 2020
Protecting income first
An interview with The Exeter’s Steve Bryan
The Exeter remained fully open for business when the pandemic struck in March. Unlike other income protection (IP) providers, it made the decision not to withdraw its day one or week one cover from the market as the UK went into lockdown. More recently, the mutual has introduced an ‘Income First’ toolkit to help advisers prioritise IP when talking to clients, while the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the benefits of digital enhancements made to its claims process. After winning the award for Best Income Protection at the COVER Excellence Awards, we caught up with The Exeter’s Director of Distribution and Marketing, Steve Bryan, to hear more about the proposition and how the Covid-19 crisis is changing the perception of income protection in the eyes of consumers. What makes an award-winning income protection proposition in your eyes? I think ‘proposition’ is the key word there. It’s not just having a product that is flexible, clear and understandable, but it’s also about being easy to do business with and providing a quality service to both advisers and customers - or in our case, members. There also needs to be complete transparency throughout the process. The product is the fulcrum but it’s the wider service offering and then, of course, the moment of truth: the point of claim. IP is without any doubt the most claimed on protection product but that’s the time the insurer needs to deliver. We, and many others, take an individual approach to claims; we look to help our members remain in the workplace where possible, or facilitate their return to work, through early intervention and rehabilitation support when required, whilst supporting them financially throughout the process. The proposition is also encompassed by compassion; by showing that we care as an organisation – it’s more than just a monetary transaction. It’s about a relationship between insurer, adviser and member, and making sure everybody has their key roles to play. Why is IP such an important product in your eyes? You only need to look at the current situation to see the impact of unexpected events on people’s incomes. You are far more likely to be impacted by a loss of income through illness or injury for three months than die within the next year. We’ve got millions of people – both employed and self-employed – at the moment who are reliant on the state. However, the support people are getting would not be as generous in a non-pandemic situation. That’s where IP really comes into its own. We were able to consider claims for self-isolation right at the start of the pandemic (we still would), for those unable to work not because they were ill, but because they needed to follow official medical guidance to self-isolate. We had to do this outside of our product T&Cs but felt that was the right thing to do. Arguably people are more aware than ever of the importance of protecting their income, but that doesn’t mean they will make an IP purchase. What is more important than having a certain level of income? Working enables us to fulfil our lifestyles, so protecting that income has to be the key financial decision in anybody’s life. And that’s where good financial advice comes in. So, advisers, as well as consumers, need to prioritise IP. How has The Exeter proposition evolved over the past 12 months? We’ve recently launched a new ‘Income First’ toolkit as part of our Income First campaign focused on IP. The aim of that is to provide advisers with all the tools to allow them to have confident income protection conversations. There is an income risk calculator that highlights the financial benefits that IP provides; a Reasons Why editor, objection handling tips and CPD-approved resources that highlight opportunities within the IP market. The evolution of our to-market proposition has been underpinned by us looking at areas where we can be more efficient from a technological perspective. The pandemic has forced many of us down that route, but there are far more electronic GP reports now than before (still not enough, but great strides); the introduction of digital claim forms has also sped up the time it takes to receive information from claimants. The natural technological evolution of the pandemic has hopefully brought with it habits that will continue into the future. Has the Covid-19 pandemic helped make income protection more of a priority for the protection market? Firstly, I am very proud of how we all responded to the pandemic as an industry. However, I think the perception of IP as a priority had started before the pandemic. Things like the furlough scheme and the situations that many people face are reinforcing it. We’ve often said as an industry that more could be done by us collectively, but I think we’ve done a lot of that during the challenges that 2020 has brought. What I do wonder is whether consumer perception has changed. I think the industry has been aligned and advisers are more willing to have conversations about IP, but I do wonder whether consumers will remember the need for income protection once this is all over, because they can have a tendency to forget. But I hope I am wrong. All this does is reinforce the importance of good financial advice. It is unlikely that people will wake up in five years’ time and think ‘I need to buy an IP policy’. However, there is definitely an immediate focus on the need for it as a result of the pandemic, with people actively seeking it out. But that won’t last forever, so now is the time to really prioritise income first.
COVER editor Adam Saville sits down with The Exeter’s Steve Bryan to hear more about the mutual’s award-winning income protection proposition
Protecting Income First
Critical Thinking
Guardian CEO Katya Maclean on condition wordings, doing the right thing for customers and winning Best Individual Critical Illness
We’re thrilled to win the Best Individual Critical Illness award – thank you to the judging panel, and everyone who has supported us. It’s been an exciting two years since our launch. We’ve been bold and brave in our proposition design, challenging some ingrained industry norms, so it’s heartening to receive this recognition. The feedback from advisers is that our critical illness product offers the very best outcomes for their clients – and that’s exactly what we wanted! Paving the way for a new approach One of the most commonly recognised difficulties for advisers selling critical illness is that, unless you’re a medical expert, policies are notoriously hard to compare. In an attempt to overcome this, comparisons between policies have taken different forms over the years. Most crudely, there’s been a straight price comparison. Another crude method has been comparing the number of conditions covered. Both approaches are flawed in their own ways. For a while, the industry was accused of product tinkering. But when you think about it, until we’d all accepted that price and number of conditions were no longer the right way to talk about products, it was difficult for providers to do more than tinker. Redesign was risky because it just didn’t fit the industry ‘model’. But now, we’re delighted to say, things are changing. Our critical illness definitions are one of the things we're most proud of here at Guardian. Coming to market as a totally new business, we were able to design them from scratch. We wanted them to be truly comprehensive. We wanted to be able to pay claims more easily and sooner. At the same time, we wanted to improve trust in our industry, making it easier for us to meet client expectations and fulfil our promises. So, our definitions for the most commonly claimed-for conditions – including heart attack, stroke and cancer – all pay out on definite diagnosis by a qualified UK medical consultant. They’ve had years of training and have the right qualifications. Clients trust them. They’re best placed to say if a claimant has a condition or has suffered an event like a stroke. We’re essentially reducing the risk of a decline for not meeting a medical technicality. You just need to read our definitions to see their simplicity – you don’t need to be a doctor to understand them. And the biggest achievement for us is that others have started to follow, creating their own ways to simplify wording, or move to body systems – all ways to make it easier to understand what’s covered. We’re starting to see a shift, for the better, away from a numbers game to simplicity and clarity of definitions. Rewarding loyalty is only fair! But what good are crystal clear definitions if they go out of date? That’s one of the biggest challenges in our industry. Improvements to critical illness definitions generally only apply to new customers. This leaves advisers in a tricky situation – rewrite the policy and the client will likely have to pay more, or leave it as is and hope they never need to claim on those particular definitions. For customers, it’s just not fair. So, we’ve taken a different approach. We think existing customers should be treated as well as new ones. If our critical illness definitions improve, we check any claim against both the definitions the customer bought, and the definitions we offer to new customers. For most conditions, we pay out if the claim is valid under either. Usually this is completely free of charge. Occasionally, we may introduce changes that will come at a cost. If we do, we’ll offer existing clients the opportunity to pay to add these when we upgrade the condition. If they choose to upgrade, their policy will be upgraded to include that definition for future claims. So they’re never left behind. Our cover upgrade promise is unique, and we’re proud of it. We think every critical illness product in the market should take this approach. Policyholders should be rewarded for loyalty, not penalised. Dual life – protection for the long-term But while definitions are a key factor when choosing a critical illness policy, they’re not the only factor. One of the biggest challenges we brought to the market was our dual life approach. Which is effectively two single life policies in one application. That’s not unique. But what is unique is that we don’t offer joint life policies at all. With a joint life policy, if one partner dies, the other is left uninsured. What’s more, they’re now older and may be in poorer health, so buying a new policy could be costly – if they can get one at all. With Guardian, our approach is dual life for every couple. They apply together, and advisers quote on the portal exactly as they would for a joint life policy, but we return a quote for dual life. Double the potential payout, with a multi-life discount applied to keep the premium competitive. In a recent survey, we asked 553 advisers to rate our proposition features – our dual life approach came first1. The right thing to do We’ve designed our critical illness policies this way because we believe it’s the right thing to do. Advisers have an incredibly challenging job. Our role is to make it easier for them to choose the right critical illness cover for their clients and give them confidence we’ll be there when they need us. guardian1821.co.uk/advisers Source: 1 Guardian survey to 553 advisers from 19 October until 30 November 2020
Getting Back to Business
We spoke to Aegon’s protection director Stephen Crosbie to find out what makes an award-winning business protection proposition
Aegon became the first insurer to ever be presented an award for ‘Best Business Protection’ at the COVER Excellence Awards this year. Brought in for 2020 to celebrate the stand-out insurer offering business-focused protection solutions, such as key person and shareholder cover, Aegon was picked by our judges for providing an inclusive range that delivers flexibility to advisers, while understanding their needs. We spoke to the firm’s protection director to get the inside track on the proposition and why it won. What makes an award-winning business protection proposition in your eyes? A business protection product needs to be backed by people with the expertise and knowledge to help make it as easy as possible for advisers to protect their clients’ businesses. From pre-sale training and opportunity development, all the way through to the customer service, underwriting and claims processes. So I’m delighted we’ve been named Best Business Protection Provider. What does Aegon offer by way of business protection and how? We’ve designed our Business Protection menu specifically for the business protection market, offering a full suite of products to cover a business’s continuity and succession planning needs. We have one of the most flexible products available, and importantly, our guaranteed insurability options are aligned to business needs. We also offer an immediate cover facility if business protection is urgent. We’re one of few providers to offer key person income protection and executive income protection, and the only provider offering both to businesses. We also offer Relevant Life cover with a signature-free trust option for online applications, helping employers provide tax-efficient death-in-service benefits to individual employees. This can work well alongside executive income protection as an overall employee benefits package for small businesses who don’t have the scale to qualify for group risk schemes, as neither are treated as P11D benefits. Our business customers have access to Policy Plus – our range of support services, including a 24/7 health and wellbeing service, a second medical opinion service, a key person replacement service and a funeral payment pledge. How has Aegon’s business protection proposition evolved in recent times? We’ve invested in our online service making it easier for advisers to submit applications online. Advisers can apply for their clients’ business continuity, succession and Relevant Life benefits together in a single online application, and save with our multi-benefit and multi-policy discounts. We’ve introduced a signature-free trust for Relevant Life policies – making it quicker and easier to get the policy on risk. We recently improved our Business Protection menu by: • introducing a new 2-year benefit payment period and extending the maximum income replacement ratio available for executive income protection; • introducing accidental death benefit across all our life and critical illness benefits, and • increasing the maximum customers can increase their benefit without additional underwriting, using our guaranteed insurability options. Why is there such a huge amount of growth potential in the business protection market today? Very few UK businesses have business protection cover in place. Business protection is often seen as complicated – but it doesn’t have to be. We try to demystify this by working in partnership with advisers to guide and educate them. Our sales team is experienced in this market and we also offer specialist tax and trust support. Business owners are now appreciating the significant tax advantages of meeting certain personal protection needs through their business, by using benefits such as Relevant Life and executive income protection. Both of these offers opportunities for advisers to discuss business’s continuity and succession needs. What tools and resources do you offer advisers to help them offer business protection? Our dedicated business protection specialists can help advisers better understand the market and create a strategy to increase their skills and knowledge so they can maximise the opportunities available. Our online business protection toolkit is designed to help make business protection easy. This includes our Guide to Business Protection, which helps advisers develop opportunities, as well as learn more about business protection and how to advise on it. It’s also the home of our Vault, the adviser’s one-stop-shop for all the support material they'll need to help them in this market. What impact has Covid had on business protection interest and public perception of need? Death or serious illness could devastate a business which has been carefully built up over many years. While the government is providing financial support to help businesses survive during the global pandemic it raises the question of how businesses would survive if it lost key people to death or serious illness in normal times. Many advisers will already be speaking to business owners on a personal protection level. So it’s vital they have open and honest conversations about the importance of having business protection plans in place to protect their business long term. While there are currently some restrictions around cover levels and certain high-risk medical conditions, this shouldn’t put advisers off as business protection is still available. Advisers should contact our pre-submission underwriting helpline upfront to get a view on what’s possible.
Proud to Protect Case Study
We sat down with Proud to Protect Award winner Samantha Haffenden-Angear to hear how she went above and beyond to ensure her client could make a vital children’s critical illness claim
Drewberry senior adviser Samantha Haffenden-Angear uses her own personal experience as motivation to give her clients the best protection advice possible. After suggesting her mum took out a life insurance policy before she worked in protection, she saw first-hand the importance of terminal illness benefit when her mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two-and-a-half years ago. Now, on a daily basis, she focuses her time and effort as an adviser on explaining the importance of taking out the right cover to her clients – based on their personal circumstances and not price. At the COVER Excellence Awards, Samantha was awarded the Proud to Protect Award, in association with Aviva, based on an encounter which led her to work hard to push through a children’s critical illness claim for a client who had initially wanted to cancel his policy. A story that displays the (often understated) importance of regular client reviews, expert product knowledge and the crucial role an adviser can play during the claims process, we sat down with Samantha to hear more about her impressive client-first approach. What happened when your client contacted you in December 2019? Originally I spoke to my client in 2017. I was able to help him complete a general fact-find to understand his circumstances. We looked at numerous products. We then completed a routine review in 2019, which we at Drewberry feel is really, really important. My client actually wanted to cancel one of his policies, so we discussed his change in circumstances and delved into why he wanted to cancel, and to see if there were any gaps. During this, after discussing his family and personal life, I discovered that one of his children had not been well for quite a long time and had spent quite a long time in hospital. We went into a bit of detail about the illness and the tests which were ongoing; a subject which can often be difficult, especially as it involves talking about children as it’s obviously very sensitive. Because I’d recommended the enhanced, upgraded children’s cover, I felt from what we had discussed that, potentially, there was a claim that he didn’t know about. I obviously said, ‘For goodness sake, don’t cancel anything yet, let me see what I can do’. I proceeded to then phone the insurer to find out what the procedure was and then called him back and told him that a claim was possible and told him that we would help him through that.
‘Product knowledge is paramount’
Daren Boys, Protection Portfolio Distribution Director, Aviva
What sort of skills are required of an adviser in this sort of situation? I think firstly it goes back to the first conversation, the initial fact-find. If I had not found out that information about his family and children in the first place, then I may not have been able to talk about his situation and realise he had the enhanced children’s cover in place. From the first conversation, it’s about finding out as much about the client as possible, rather than taking a ‘robot’ approach just to get through it. How important is product knowledge when it comes to advising clients during a review of this kind? Especially over the last year or so, in which critical illness policy conditions have been changing almost on a weekly basis, product knowledge is paramount. When you’re having that conversation with your client you are always thinking at the back of your mind how you can help them. Especially with critical illness, there are so many different policies and different products - even with one provider you can have four, five, six different products. Keeping up to date with everything that’s going on, with medical advances also, is incredibly important in order to know which policy is going to suit each client and why. What happened next, when it came to trying to get the claim paid for the client? Once we had a conversation with the insurer and spoken to the client, we initially thought it was going to be a straightforward claim. However with regards to illnesses, it is not always quite as cut and dry. Myself and my colleague Anne-Marie from our client support team – who was excellent during the process - over the next eight months went back and forth with the insurer and client. We had to discuss with GPs, consultants, liaise with the hospital paediatrician to speed things up as much as possible. Understandably with insurers they have 100s of claims, we were in the lucky position in the sense that we didn’t, so we made sure that we were putting the time in and making sure it was going to be paid as quickly as possible. Because this was an ongoing illness - ongoing tests, ongoing hospital stays - the longer it was going on, the bigger the financial loss to the client. Sounds like there was a lot of pressure on you as an adviser to get this pushed through… Effectively you know that client, you’ve got that ongoing relationship. The last thing you want to say to a client is that a children’s critical illness claim has been declined. So you fight for that as much as possible, to try to get as much information and as quickly as possible from the client, to the insurer. The insurer then, of course, has its own panel to make its decision. They went through all of these channels and eventually they did come through and pay it. But from an adviser point of view, you work as hard as you can to get it done. Why was your initial advice and support throughout the claim process so beneficial to your client? When it comes to a children’s critical illness claim, there is an extra degree of sensitivity. As an adviser, you are setting the scene, building a rapport and a relationship. The first point of call for anything. And then making sure that you are completing those ongoing reviews to ensure everything is still fit for purpose going forward. If, for example, we hadn’t have had that intervention, that review, then potentially he may have just cancelled the policy directly with the insurer and no claim would have been made at that point. But also the actual persistence of making sure that claim gets through. From an adviser’s perspective, you are constantly trying to liaise with GP to get reports and medical screenings, that’s something you do on a daily basis. Don’t let things go, because at the end of it (in this case), it was not just the claim itself – what they are entitled to – but then on top there was interest for the time it took, as well as the hospitalisation benefit on top of that too. It’s also important to make sure you have a good working relationship with the person you are working with, so myself and Anne-Marie were constantly back and forth. Have you spoken to this person, have you spoken to that person? Where are we with it? What’s the next documentation that needs to be sent across? Whilst also making sure you’ve got that relationship with the client to make sure everyone feels comfortable sharing such sensitive information, from a data protection and medical consent point of view. And there were so many ongoing tests, so that was something that could have been challenging. My colleague Anne-Marie, she is fantastic and one of the reasons that this claim was paid as well. She’s a mum, very sensitive, has a personal touch, so it was not just a factual process. This needed to be dealt with in a really special way. What other aspects of the policy were important in your eyes? With a critical illness plan, you can often have an enhanced or upgraded version, so it’s actually those finer benefits, such as the congenital diseases: questions like ‘are you planning to have children in the next year?’ It’s really within the first 10 years of the child’s life that it’s going to be most important to have that upgraded element, because that’s the time in which they are most likely to contract one of those serious illnesses. Having that upgraded, enhanced cover was pretty straightforward for me from a recommendation point of view. It shouldn’t come down to cost in my opinion as long as the client has got every option. However, it’s my job to advise them on the right policy. Luckily, I’m pleased that I did this at the time.
claim was not straight-forward, but was in the end successful. And in this instance, it was a child CI claim, further highlighting the positive impact Samantha had in this case.”
“This was an entry that had it all. It was well presented, with clear evidence of a strong advice process – not only at point of sale, but also highlighting the importance of regular, ongoing reviews. Against the devastating emotional and financial impact of a critical illness, the
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