Protection Guru has launched ‘Designed by Doctors’ - a series of recommended critical illness definitions covering conditions such as heart attacks and multiple sclerosis to improve policy wordings.
The firm said its aim was to ensure the best possible patient outcomes by achieving alignment with the latest medical practice.
Protection Guru brought together an independent medical committee of doctors and epidemiologists to create the new example wordings for critical illness policies.
The committee revisited 10 key critical illness conditions to identify unnecessary complexity and obsolete medical terminology.
This included:
- Cancer
- Heart attack
- Stroke
- Total permanent disability
- Multiple sclerosis
- Benign brain tumour
- Parkinson’s disease
- Coma
- Deafness
- Carcinoma in situ / high-grade pre-invasive lesions
FTAdviser understands the firm will look at further conditions in the months ahead.
It explained that while critical illness policies are legal documents and must include complex medical terms, wording should be easy for qualified medical professionals to understand, which is not always the case.
Dr Adam Hazel, chairman of the Protection Guru independent medical panel and founder of Harley Street-based Tyburn Medical Practice, said: “Medicine, diagnostics and treatment is moving at a pace never seen before and is continuing to accelerate. It cannot be in the interests of consumers for policy wordings to be based on measurements and diagnostic techniques that the medical profession has moved on from.”
Protection Guru founder Ian McKenna said by producing example wordings for clarity and accuracy, the firm can offer insurers and reinsurers impartial guidance on keeping their policies in line with contemporary medical practice.
“Since we launched our original critical illness benchmarking in 2017, we have been able to work with many individual insurers to simplify and improve wordings for consumers. This is the next phase of this work through which we are looking to raise standards across the industry,” he said.
“It is crucial to recognise we are not seeking to encourage adoption of a single or standard critical illness wording. That would be counterproductive. Stimulating competition is core to our objectives. We are however looking to demonstrate that wordings can be better than they are today.”
Critical illness wordings were first benchmarked in 1991 by the National Federation of Independent Financial Advisers, which subsequently became the IFA Association and IFA Portfolio.
Adviser firms using the Protection Guru Pro service will next year be able to use a “Designed by Doctors” assessment when recommending insurers who meet the medical committee’s benchmarks for clarity and reflect latest medical practice.
Johnny Timpson, the Financial Inclusion Commissioner said: “Consumer research has shown previously that one of the reasons consumers buy critical illness plans is the certainty of a payout they can rely on. This only works properly for them if we keep wordings as clear as possible and in line with medical practice. It is essential the definitions are both accurate and keep patient outcomes front of mind.”
Keith Richards, chief executive of the Consumer Duty Alliance said any initiative that makes wordings clearer and more up-to-date, must be a huge step forward and aligns with the expectations of consumer duty.
“When it comes to critical illness plans, inevitably there will be some medical terms that most of us struggle with, which is why initiatives like this are so important,” he said.
“People with serious illnesses will be talking to their physicians regularly, so putting wordings into language doctors can easily understand is a natural and welcome development.”
McKenna explained this new work does not conflict with the existing work by the Association of British Insurers on minimum standards which was passed over from the IFAA in 1999.
amy.austin@ft.com
