Scottish Widows Critical Illness Showcase Page

SCOTTISH WIDOWS’ CRITICAL ILLNESS PROPOSITION IN THEIR OWN WORDS

“We focus on comprehensive cover with simplicity at its heart. We reduced the number of CI definitions to 30 while widening the scope of cover, providing cover where it matters most and focusing on the areas where we can pay more claims.

To make the complex simple, we introduced our unique body concept to help advisers to explain critical illness cover and customers understand what they are covered for.

All our critical illness policies come with TPD and children’s cover included.

We make the underwriting process as easy and as transparent as possible.  Advisers can contact one of our skilled underwriters to discuss applications pre-submission to see if cover can be offered. We also offer a tele-underwriting service to speak directly to clients and gather information from them rather than writing to their GP.

Scottish Widows Care, provided in partnership with RedArc, is available to access at the very start of the policy giving clients and their family immediate practical and emotional support as well as the option of a second medical opinion of their diagnosis. For new customers we also include access to Clinic in a Pocket virtual GP services.

We make the complex simple when it comes to critical illness, with a comprehensive value proposition that doesn’t compromise on quality of cover.”

Scottish Widows critical illness covers a broad range of conditions. what is particularly impressive is that, whilst broad in coverage, their definitions are clear and concise and the documentation uses simple graphics to highlight what is covered. The body image used by Scottish Widows demonstrates the broad range of conditions covered which have been categorised into five easy to understand headings. The definitions have been carefully constructed to provide comprehensive cover with similar conditions grouped into single definitions as our independent panel of medical practitioners explain:

“A lot of thought has clearly gone into the format of this policy to allow greater understanding to the lay-person. This has been done through organising wordings into body systems with the addition of a graphical representation. Scottish Widows appear to have found the right balance of combining and simplifying wordings, without losing either coverage or clarity, which is impressive.”

In 2021 , Scottish Widows paid more than £207 million in life & critical illness claims helping 10,426 customers and their families. This accounted for 9,035 life claims and 1,391 critical illness claims and provided valuable financial support to these customers at a difficult time in their lives.

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Scottish Widows offer all CI Claimants an immediate £3,000 advance payment to help those who suffer a CI diagnosis deal with immediate costs, while the full claim is processed.

Macmillan research highlights that 83% of people with cancer in the UK experience some kind of financial impact from their diagnosis. For those affected, this reaches an average of £891 a month on top of their usual expenditure.

The same study found that 39% of people with cancer are severely financially affected by their diagnosis and 3 in 4 people with cancer experience a loss in salary. For those living with the long-term effects of cancer, the overall financial burden of their diagnosis is more than a year’s average UK full-time salary.

No one likes to think of their child becoming seriously ill, but having cover in place provides added comfort knowing you will be able to cope with unexpected costs. A lump sum payout can help with additional expenses, for example taking time off work, travel costs or making adaptations to the home.  Scottish Widows Interactive Mini Body helps customers understand what they are covered for.

• Simple definitions that offer broad critical illness coverage with excellent supporting material to help highlight the breadth of cover to clients via easily understandable graphics.
• Excellent mental health support
• An inclusive approach to underwriting with a willingness to provide terms where possible to as many clients as possible.

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.