7families in a nutshell

We are delighted to be one of the insurer sponsors of 7families.

 • In partnership with Disability Rights UK, the project finds seven families who have been impacted by incapacity to work and who don’t have long sick pay income cover from their employer or insurance as individuals.

• Grants to the equivalent of an income protection benefit are paid and the incapacitated worker is case managed and assisted as if they had disability cover in place.

• The main purpose is to show the reality of engagement with insurers, the imperative of communication to keep the person in touch with their place of work and to show how rehab and intensive case management and treatment can mitigate the economic wastage for the individual, the family, the employer and society.

• Fundamentally, this is about telling those stories and increasing awareness of the single biggest risks that families run, that is the loss of income from incapacity to work and the short/medium and long-term effects that has on the person and their family.
 

You can check for updates and support the campaign online by following these links:

Website: www.7families.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/7families

Twitter: www.twitter.com/7families

YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/sevenfamilies

The Ellipse approach to member assessment

The traditional approach to individual underwriting in group life and disability is a very time consuming process that can normally take weeks or months to produce a decision. Our online member assessment is faster, simpler and - we believe - better.

We differ from the rest of the market by using an online questionnaire to assess members with benefits not covered by the automatic acceptance limit. This online questionnaire adapts its questions as the member provides answers, probing those areas where more information is needed, but skipping over anything not relevant to that specific member. In practice this means that you only get asked detailed questions about conditions or areas members disclose.

Compared to traditional methods our online assessment takes, on average, just 10 minutes to complete. It can be completed at a time and place that is convenient to the member. To date 73% of members have been accepted instantly at the end of the questionnaire and 89% of members have been accepted without the need for further medical evidence. We email the member to prompt them to come into our password protected to complete the job.  There are no long drawn out processes with us where doubt can creep in as to what cover the individual has.  That reduces risk for the scheme sponsor and the adviser.

In the minority of cases where we do require further evidence we will try to obtain this from the member direct rather than their GP, in order to speed the process up. If particular tests are needed, we will arrange for a nurse to visit the member at a time and location of their convenience. The results of the screening will be available to Ellipse within 2 working days.

Only rarely will we need a report from a GP. In these cases, once we have the members signed consent form we will arrange for a dedicated team to request and manage the process from start to finish. The average time to a decision for all members including those not accepted and requiring further evidence is 5 days.

To keep advisers and employers in the loop, an assessment update report is sent out on a weekly basis summarising of all the assessments and evidence - gathering that has occurred on a scheme and its current status.

This video interview gives a member’s view on how much more user-friendly our online process is than traditional, paper-based underwriting.  

Kieran Stratton

Individual Assessment Manager

 

Not so much a nudge , more a big shove in the back ……

Arthur Schopenhauer observed that all truth or changes passes through three stages.   At first there is ridicule,  followed by violent opposition and thirdly, acceptance as self evident.  Always start a blog with a German philosopher is my rule ……

Could auto-enrolment to sick pay be the next State intervention?  Prior to auto-enrolment to pensions, if you asked me how many traditional providers welcomed or wanted it I’d have said “not so sure any of them”.  But they got it and a bit more besides with the “pensions freedom” changes.  If the government thinks that saving for old age can be sorted out by a combination of employers, law and telling people it is the new normal, what’s next ?

The next target for the government could be long-term sick pay cover.

From the outset the approach to sick pay intervention would need to be different. The basic interface between welfare benefits and insurance sick pay is difficult. The concept and execution is not as simple as pensions because the welfare system will always want to keep families and children out of extreme poverty.

A situation may arise where employers are obliged to facilitate this but not necessarily provide entire working-life cover for their employees. As insurers we could play a role in aiding the process. Digitally we can develop rules-based systems that could tell people when to buy top-up cover or when to basically stay with State provision. Bearing that in mind, group risk insurers need to be developing those systems now. While some may doubt that auto-enrolment to sick pay will happen, the direction of travel is clear and companies that are ahead of the curve will fare better than those that adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach.

We like to think not too much changes in our world but the reality is that we are already in the middle of this change. Income protection in the event of incapacity to earn being outsourced to the private sector is now likely.