Havensrock Group Life Professions Excepted Life
Havensrock is a new group life brand that launched on 1 October. Its plans are underwritten by Scottish Friendly and are distributed through Punter Southall Health and Protection Consulting (PSHPC).
This plan is a group life scheme that is available as either a registered group life or an excepted group life plan. The Professions version clusters low risk employees together, allowing the insurer to offer competitive pricing and also a three year rate guarantee. Havensrock also offers a general group life cover plan and one for trustees, which provides individual, liability-matching life insurance for pension schemes.
Excepted group life effectively enables an employer to offer generous tax-free benefits to its top employees by giving lump sum benefits that do not count towards their lifetime allowance (LTA). The LTA was reduced from £1.5m to £1.25m in April 2014, so this point is now becoming more significant for more people and we expect that trend to continue.
Benefits have to be strictly limited on excepted life plans but Havensrock does offer some extra benefits including:
Dependant’s Benefit. This extends cover to the employee’s partner as well as to the employee.
Telephone support and guidance for adults for a bereaved child through childhood bereavement charity Winston’s Wish.
The plan itself is otherwise fairly standard, with cover lasting up to age 75 and benefits being paid out through a discretionary trust. Some catastrophe limits apply such as when on travelling together and cover may also be limited or stopped in periods of long term absence. Free cover underwriting limits (which were not specified on the literature we saw) are also available.
This version of the plan is only available to certain sedentary professions such as lawyers, accountants, architects, doctors and those in financial services.
Comment: A new provider is always welcome and this new group risk provider brings together the growing reputation for innovation of Scottish Friendly with the distribution potential of the fast-growing Punter Southall group.
The version of the plan we have reviewed is only available to professionals – but that is a large and generally affluent group. It offers them very competitive rates and a three year rate guarantee. Moreover, a partner can get cover through this route too through the Dependant’s Benefit option and the Winston’s Wish link is also valuable.
Plus points: A new group risk brand; Lower premiums for professionals; With a three year rate guarantee; Dependant’s Benefit option; Winston’s Wish link.
Not so plus points: New providers often (but not always) have admin teething troubles; Members must qualify as professionals; Excepted life cover is limited as to what benefits it can provide.
Website: http://www.havensrock.com.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 8. Gold
Tags: Havensrock; Group life