PruProtect improves serious illness cover for cancer, heart attack and stroke

Provider also offering new financial incentives for healthy members

PruProtect is making a number of major improvements to its serious illness cover, as well as introducing new financial incentives for customers who engage with its healthy living programme.

At a launch event in London last night, Herschel Mayers (pictured), CEO of PruProtect, said the provider is now able to offer “a new generation of protection insurance” which assesses a person’s risk on an ongoing basis and therefore results in fairer and more accurate pricing.

PruProtect's severity-based serious illness cover now covers all heart attacks and strokes on diagnosis on both its Primary and Comprehensive versions. Comparatively, most traditional policies require a heart attack to be of a certain severity to qualify for a pay out, and require permanent symptoms to be evident before paying out for a stroke. PruProtect’s pay outs for these conditions range from between 25% and 100% of a customer’s cover amount, depending on severity.

In addition, PruProtect says its Comprehensive cover now covers more cancers than any other insurer. It covers all carcinoma-in-situ cancers, wherever they are on the body, paying out 5% of the cover amount on diagnosis. Many other insurers only cover carcinoma-in-situ cancers in a limited number of parts of the body, such as the breast, and only pay out if a customer has invasive treatment rather than on diagnosis.

At the launch, Deepak Jobanputra, product and actuarial director at PruProtect, said cancer, stroke and heart attack – the three most common reasons for critical illness claims – are “moving from critical to chronic” conditions as mortality and early diagnosis rates improve.

He said: “We need new financial solutions that meet these changing needs.” Jobanputra added that by being able to make “bold statements” such as ‘we cover diagnosis of all heart attacks’, PruProtect is taking away the potential for “any miscommunications or awkward conversations for advisers with their clients”.

He added: “When people take out a critical or serious illness policy they expect to be covered for the most common conditions like cancer and heart attacks, no matter how severe."

The provider has also extended the age range for children’s cover on its serious illness plan. It now covers children from one month old up to 18, or 23 if in full time education – previously children were covered from three months old to 18 only.  

In addition, PruProtect is introducing an optional benefit to all of its protection plans called Vitality Optimiser. This gives all new clients an upfront discount on their premiums of up to 40%; whole of life customers benefit from a discount of 15-40%, depending on their age, and term assurance customers receive a discount of 5-20%, depending on the length of their policy term.

It also means their premiums will vary by between -1% and +2% each year depending on their level of engagement with PruProtect’s Vitality wellness programme. For instance, a ‘Bronze’ status customer who does not engage at all would see their premiums rise by 2% each year, while a ‘Platinum’ customer who engages to the maximum possible level would see their premiums go down by 1% each year. Customers also receive cashback of between £50-100 if they engage with the programme. They can improve their Vitality status by partaking in healthy activities such as smoking cessation programmes and exercise.

Continue reading the article at Health Insurance Daily.com

Article Health Insurance Daily by Tessa Norman