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SCOTTISH WIDOWS’ BUSINESS PROTECTION IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Businesses can be structured in different ways, but regardless of size and how they’ve been set up, it’s important that your clients understand how business protection can help safeguard the financial future of their company, so they can continue trading even during difficult times. A cash injection in the right hands at the right time could make the difference between survival and failure of the business.
To better meet more of your clients’ business protection needs, our Protection menu plan allows you to mix and match covers.
- Each of our business protection plans can cover multiple policies, creating a single cover structure with one direct debit.
- The business protection solutions we offer are:
- Key Person Protection
- Shareholder and Partnership Protection
- Loan Protection
- Relevant Life Cover
- These solutions are provided through a range of covers that include Life Cover, Life with Critical Illness, Critical Illness Cover and Relevant Life Cover.
- And these policies also provide access to practical and emotional support through our Scottish Widows care package.
“Business protection and relevant life cover policies account for only 2.2% of protection sales, with pure business protection less than 1%*. With over 1.4 million small to medium sized businesses in the UK with employees**, there’s a clear need for protection should something happen to a key employee . We’re here to help you identify the opportunity to provide your business clients with the protection they may need.”
The size of the opportunity
Over 12 million employees in the UK are employed by 1.4 million small to medium sized businesses.* It’s often likely that these businesses rely on a small number of key employees. So it’s hard to understand why business protection and relevant life sales account for just 2.2% of all protection sales.** The need for business protection is clear – there’s a significant opportunity for advisers to continue to support their clients
Scottish Widows provide a range of useful business protection tools and calculators can save you time and help you with your client conversations.
Underwriting outcome tool
Protection Recommendation tool
Relevant life policy calculator
Business valuation calculator
Key person calculator
Equalisation of premium calculator
One direct debit for multiple plans
Each of Scottish Widows’ business protection plans can cover multiple policies, creating a single cover structure with one direct debit.
All of these solutions can be provided through a range of covers that include Life Cover, Life with Critical Illness Cover and Critical Illness Cover, apart from Relevant Life Cover which can only be provided on a Life Cover basis.
Key Person Protection
This cover protects a business against a financial loss of a key employee as a result of death or diagnosis of a terminal illness or critical illness.
A key person is someone whose long-term absence or death would affect the overall profits of a business such as a key sales person.
Loan Protection
This type of insurance is appropriate for a business which has any outstanding borrowings such as a loan, overdraft, commercial mortgage or a director's loan.
The aim is to pay off any business debts of the person insured. With loan protection owners, partners or directors can insure the amount of any outstanding debt, and in the event of death or diagnosis of a terminal or critical illness this will be repaid.
Shareholder & partnership protection
This cover is designed to protect the financial interests of the shareholders of the business against the death or diagnosis of a terminal or critical illness.
Without shareholder protection the loss of a key shareholder could mean the other shareholders may lose control of the business with shares going to the deceased's family.
Relevant life cover
A relevant life cover plan allows an employer to provide a death in service benefit for a director or employee while they work for the business.
The cover provides protection for the employee's family rather than the business. If the employee dies, their family receives the sum assured payout, not the business. This is an important employee benefit and could help recruit and retain staff.
There are some valuable tax efficiencies for the employer and the employee. A relevant life cover plan is usually an allowable business expense that can be offset against corporation tax bills, and for the employee the policy payments won't be taxed as a benefit in kind.
The tax benefits referred to are based on Scottish Widows' understanding of HM Revenue and Customs practice and UK law. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may be subject to change.
Supporting the business
Additional benefits
Scottish Widows’ multi-benefit quote and split-sum assured functionality allows you to set up more than one cover in one quote, helping you to tailor the quote to meet all your clients’ protection needs.
They also offer a price lock promise where, from the date your client’s application is submitted, the price won’t change for up to 12 months, subject to underwriting.
Trust Support
With Scottish Widows’ online trust support, you have access to a trust chooser and online and editable trust documents to help you select the correct form and make it easier to complete. You can send them digital or paper copies of the signed trust forms, whatever suits you and your client best
Additional support
All policies include the Scottish Widows Care service, which gives your clients more than just financial protection. Scottish Widows work with the independent nurse advisory service, RedArc so your clients and their families can get the practical advice and emotional support they might need during difficult and traumatic times. The team of personal nurses are all highly experienced, registered nurses with a wide range of specialised and general medical knowledge. They provide personalised support, to suit your clients’ exact requirements. This help is available from the day a client’s policy starts and for as long as they need it. Your clients will also have Clinic in a Pocket® as part of their policy – a service provided by Square Health giving them access to GP services and free repeat prescription delivery through an app. With Clinic in a Pocket® your clients and their immediate families can get a GP appointment on a 24/7 basis, within an average of four hours.
Experienced underwriting
With over 20 years of online underwriting experience, Scottish Widows continue to be transparent in their underwriting decisions. Through their underwriting helpline, they work with advisers to get clients access to insurance, tailoring their underwriting service to suit your clients’ needs. They aim to make their underwriting decisions immediately, by gathering as much information as they can through their online questions.
The terms they offer your client after underwriting are guaranteed for 90 days. This means that, if their policy doesn’t start immediately, they have the peace of mind of knowing what they were offered won’t change for 90 days.
Life cover sum assured |
Financial evidence requirements |
Critical illness cover sum assured |
Financial evidence requirements |
Up to £1,000,000 |
Nil |
Up to £500,000 |
Nil |
£1,000,001 to £3,500,000 |
Simplified online underwriting |
£500,001 to £1,500,000 |
Simplified online underwriting |
Over £3,500,000 |
Independent evidence – manual assessment |
Over £1,500,000 |
Independent evidence – manual assessment |
Non medical limits
Did you know?
Health & Business Stats
- The cost to employers of poor mental health is £56 billion a year
- 17 million working days were lost due to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety
- Presenteeism costs UK employers up to £29 billion a year, with presenteeism relating to mental health having more of a detrimental impact than absences
- Economic uncertainty keeps four out of five small business owners awake at night
- Average amount of business borrowing is £200,000
UK SME market
- There were 5.5 million small businesses at the start of 2022
- Total employment in SMEs was 16.4 million equating to 61% of all private sector employment in the UK
- Combined annual turnover of SMEs was £2.1 trillion in 2022
- Three-fifths of the UK private sector workforce are employed by SMEs
Supporting advisers
Consumer Duty Hub
Consumer Duty is a new and higher standard of consumer protection that has been introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It aims to ensure that the finance industry as a whole has a clearer focus on customer outcomes and protecting customers from unforeseeable harms.
Explore Scottish Widows’ Consumer Duty Hub for more information and tools in how you can meet the FCA’s requirements.
Visit Consumer Duty Hub
Continuous Professional Development
Contact your Scottish Widows Sales Representative for information on bespoke CPD session for you or your team.
For independent learning check out their CPD accredited online courses
Visit Professional development Hub
Key Benefits
- Scottish Widows’ business protection plans mirror the cover offered within their personal protection plans to reduce complication.
- Children’s CI is included in Key Person protection which can help support a short term loss for a business if a key person needs to take time off to care for a sick child.
- Excellent mental health and wider business support.
Protection Guru has worked with Scottish Widows to create a concise objective analysis of their product range. Scottish Widows have had input to the design of this page and contributed to the cost of this construction maintenance, however Protection Guru have maintained editorial control over the content to ensure objectivity.
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