8th September 2006
Leading income protection insurer, UnumProvident, has enhanced its risk management processes, resulting in an easier application procedure for its income protection products.
Amongst the changes, UnumProvident will no longer automatically link requests for medical evidence to the amount of income protection (IP) requested. Instead, evidence will only be sought where the application disclosure requires it. The very high sums insured for which UnumProvident is already known are now achievable in many more cases without the delay historically caused by evidence gathering.
This innovative approach is expected to reduce significantly the amount of time it takes to get cover in place, as UnumProvident will be able to make more final underwriting decisions within days of receiving an application.
Andrew Potterton, Chief Medical Underwriter at UnumProvident, commented:
In November 2005, we introduced a pioneering approach to the way we manage our claims and this underwriting initiative is an extension of that. The process of gathering routine medical evidence often means that it takes us some time to process and administer demands for cover. We know from our annual satisfaction research that this is a key issue for advisers too and this new approach should reduce this burden considerably.
Our own analysis has shown that medical evidence adds little to our knowledge of the risk if we have good application disclosure. We believe the person whose life is to be insured is best placed to tell us about themselves and their medical history, providing we ask the right questions. We are seeing a significant increase in types of incapacity that have no ‘organic’ cause, such as fatigue, headaches and muscular pain. The more subjective nature of these forms of incapacity means that traditional medical evidence findings gathered at the outset can be of little use in predicting the likelihood of illness at a later date.
Supporting this move away from routine evidence gathering, UnumProvident has introduced a new application form that asks a series of important questions designed to provide a broad and sufficiently detailed understanding of the risk to be insured. The form should take no longer than 20 to 30 minutes to complete and subjects covered include: details of fitness and lifestyle; sickness absence history; sports and pursuits; and medical information.
For more details of the new application form, advisers should contact Andrew Potterton at UnumProvident on 01306 646015.
ENDS