Impartial reviews on the latest products and how they can impact consumers.
April 2012 Medicash: HCP
Medicash Proactive is a group health cash plan with four option levels and premiums ranging from £1 a week. The main benefits the plan offers are: Benefit Level 1 Level 4 PMI excess/specialist consultation £200 £400 Complementary therapies (physiotherapy; sports massage; acupuncture; osteopathy; chiro) £150 £400 Alternative therapies ( reflexology; reiki; Indian head massage; Bowen and Alexander technique; homeopathy; allergy testing; hypnotherapy) £75 £200 Chiropody £20 £50 Health screening £100 £200 Prescriptions; inoculations; flu jabs £20 £50 Routine dental treatment £55 £170 Dental accident and injury £200 £500 Optical £55 £200 Personal accident cover £5,000 £24,000 Customers also get access…
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April 2012 Legal & General: GCI
L&G has introduced a number of changes to its existing group critical illness (CI) plan. These include: • Five new conditions have been added. These are: aplastic anaemia; bacterial meningitis; cardiomyopathy; encephalitis, and liver failure. This takes the total to 38 conditions (when the Additional option is selected – otherwise, only 12 conditions are covered under the Core option). • The maximum benefit has been increased to the lower of £500,000 and five times scheme earnings. • A free cover (underwriting free) limit of £500,000 for high earners has been introduced. • The minimum survival period has been cut from…
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April 2012 Aviva: IP
Aviva has introduced a number of underwriting changes to its existing Income Protection Solutions product: • Around 250 occupational classes have been updated, with 221 (including journalists, chartered surveyors, vets and scientific professionals) seeing a reduction in class, and therefore premium. A further 21 occupations that were automatically declined (including roofers, tilers and scaffolders) are now covered. • Aviva estimates that 95% of occupations are now accepted on an own occupation basis rather than a ‘suited’ or activities of daily working (ADW) incapacity definition. • The plan already includes a number of features not common to income protection, such as:…
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March 2012 Expacare: iPMI
March 2012 iPMI Expacare is based in Bracknell, Berkshire, and was set up in 1982, making it one of the oldest established international private medical insurance (IPMI) providers. Choices is a group IPMI plan for small groups—in this case 5-29 employees. The plan has been ‘soft launched,’ with new business being accepted from March. Choices is a modular plan with a core product covering in-patient/day-patient hospital treatment; emergency medical evacuation; ambulance services; rehabilitation (as an alternative to post-acute care); hospice care; repatriation of mortal remains; nursing at home; dental treatment after an accident; post-hospital out-patient; out-patient surgery; in-patient psychiatric care…
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March 2012 Ellipse: GIP
March 2012 GIP Ellipse (the UK branch of ERGO Lebensversicherung AG, part of the Munich Re group) says that it is the first group income protection (GIP) insurer to offer a plan that also includes an absence management system. At launch, the plan is available for schemes up to 300 lives but later this year Ellipse plans to extend it to cover larger workforces too. The maximum annual benefit is normally £350,000 per employee and a key element of the plan is that as soon as an employee takes any sickness absence they must contact Absencecare (the third party sickness…
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