Health Matters.
“We are recognising as an industry expert in the understanding and underwriting
of risk. We are committed to continually developing this expertise to ensure we deliver
the right set of protection and annuity products and services to our customers and
business partners in the future.”
John Pollock
Group Executive Director, Risk
We play a key role in alleviating the financial burden of ill health on the state
by helping our customers to safeguard their finances through our policies. However,
our ability to do this depends our understanding of health and longevity trends, and the impact
of ill health and increasing longevity on our policyholders.
What we know
We understand through our claims experience that mental illness, musculoskeletal
issues, cancer and heart disease are increasingly important issues in the UK. Critical illness claims
were as follows in 2010:
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What we are doing
We continue to work with a variety of external partners to understand health issues
and make better informed decisions on pricing, product availability or inclusion.
We also invest in partnerships which will enhance the knowledge and processes we
deliver everyday to clients to improve the services we offer.
- We have worked with Macmillan to train our front-line employees on how to deal with
cancer claims more empathetically.
- We have run joint workplace health seminars with the British Heart Foundation for
800 major employers across the UK to encourage improved workplace health.
- We have worked with Climatewise to link climate change and long-term health risks.
- Understanding the long-term issues of palliative care funding with experts such
as Cicely Saunders Foundation.
- Established an Independent Claims Panel in our critical illness and life product
area, which is designed to review all decisions not to pay out to customers for
claims.
- We continue to fund research into longevity with the International Longevity Centre
and Longevity Science Advisory Panel.
In addition, in October 2010 we established an Independent Claims Panel in our critical illness
and life product area, which is designed to review the decision not to pay out to
customers for claims before these decisions are communicated For the 2.8% of claims
that are likely to be declined we have found that 7% are overturned at this stage.
Our learning from this is then taken back to the business. A Justice of the Peace
assisted by several other senior managers provides the independent oversight on
decisions.
Looking forward
We will continue to identify specialist and emerging areas of health in line with
our claims experience. Big questions going forward will include:
- How will climate change impact our ability to insure workforces and individuals.
- How will long-term care be insured and funded as people live longer and the incidence
of dementia increases.
- How will initiatives such as the
BHF’s Mending Broken Hearts Campaign impact the ability to insure against
heart attacks.
- Which other areas of health can our front-line claims teams benefit from increasing their
knowledge, allowing them to deliver better service to our clients.
- How will mental health concerns be dealt with.
Case studies