No Cap & No Time

Did you see this article covering the end of transitional arrangements relating to the notional cap?

The deadline is the end of April and if a group life insurance policy doesn’t accurately reflect the new scheme benefit basis there’s the potential for large uninsured liabilities...which will probably be laid at an adviser’s door.

Clients need to make active decisions. They can either introduce a scheme cap within the pension scheme rules or make sure the cap is removed from the insurance cover. The key point is for the insurance cover to match the actual risk.

Where they exist, uninsured liabilities will affect senior employees, and it may mean underwriting is required if benefits are above the free cover level, which could take weeks or months to complete – unless your insurer is offering online member underwriting that can be completed in minutes.

Un-sticking stuck schemes

Many schemes have members who have been declined or postponed at some point in the past. This often results in those schemes being stuck with one insurer because others will load up the rates massively or decline to quote at all. The holding insurer can then dictate terms without having to worry about any competition or revisit their decision to decline/postpone (e.g. someone recently diagnosed with cancer would at that point be declined but after 12 months can often be accepted with a loading)

The good news is we can provide a no-risk way of seeing if any ‘stuck’ schemes can be ‘un-stuck’. Our online member underwriting service can be made available to the declined/postponed members – without switching the scheme to us first – to see if we can offer terms. The online assessment takes on average 15 minutes to complete, and decisions are typically immediate.

If the decision is ‘decline’ or ‘postpone’, nothing has been lost (and the initial decision has been validated) but if any terms are offered, the company is no longer stuck with just one insurer.

More details by contacting our Sales team on 0844 338 0493 (or sales@ellipse.co.uk)

P.S. As well as un-sticking any of your own clients, this could be an ‘in’ to new clients in the same predicament!