Old Mutual Critical Illness cover
Old Mutual has examined its critical illness plan and introduced more than 80 enhancements, including:
Adding five new full payment medical conditions, paying out on:
Brain injury due to trauma, anoxia or hypoxia - resulting in permanent symptoms.
Heart failure – of specified severity.
Interstitial lung disease.
Mental illness - of specified severity.*
Syringomyelia or syringobulbia requiring surgery.
* The mental health criteria are that:
The patient was admitted to a psychiatric ward where treatment was provided for at least 14 consecutive nights.
There are chronic unremitting symptoms.
The condition has not responded to comprehensive management and treatment. This must be completed, and based on best clinical practice, and received for more than one year.
There must be an inability to perform any type of work for payment or reward for a period of at least one year.
In addition, 13 new additional payment definitions have been added including:
Haematoma of the brain – with surgery.
Drug resistant epilepsy – with specified surgery.
Heartbeat abnormalities with permanent pacemaker insertion.
Cancer in situ (CIS) - with surgery coverage has been consolidated and improved and now includes more CIS definitions. Moreover, the new definitions improve clarity and reduce complexity. The CIS overall definition can also be claimed on multiple times for different surgeries.
Children’s cover comes as standard, and now runs to the child’s 22nd birthday. There are eight new child specific definitions, including:
Cerebral palsy.
Cystic fibrosis.
Muscular dystrophy.
Spina bifida.
Additional children’s cover enhancements are:
Advanced illness cover of £10,000.
New child life cover of £5,000 (in addition to the CI claim).
Double payment if treatment is required overseas.
First time cover.
Improvements to payment conditions have been made for:
Multiple sclerosis – which is now paid on diagnosis.
Coma – now includes medically induced comas.
Diabetes – there is no longer a requirement for 12 months of insulin injections.
Spinal stroke - the need for symptoms to have lasted for three months has been removed.
Intensive care – the duration has been reduced from ten to seven days.
The plan now has 49 full payment conditions (or 50 if you include terminal illness), 28 additional payment conditions and children get all adult conditions covered plus eight children’s conditions. An additional £50K is paid if the customer is diagnosed with a full payment condition and meets one of a number of additional requirements.
Comment: Most CI providers these days tend to introduce frequent updates, each one improving the plan a little. OMW hasn’t changed its plan for some while, so may be adopting the strategy of less frequent but bigger updates. That approach can be less confusing to advisers 1and creates a bigger effect but runs the risk that competitors will quickly catch up and then exceed your offering.
That said, the changes made add up to significant improvements in cover. One new area being covered is serious mental health, although in practice very few will meet the very strict claim criteria (perhaps that’s inevitable). This is an area that will probably be refined further by CI insurers as they look to balance financial payouts and other help that can be provided.
OMW’s philosophy of trying to offer as comprehensive cover as possible is commendable – although current CI models means that does add complexity too.
Plus points: A major update, including new conditions and changes to existing definitions; Children covered for all adult conditions plus specific child conditions; Children’s cover now runs to age 22.
Not so plus points: More cover means more complexity, although there has been some simplification too; All current CI plans cover most but not all critical illnesses and this plan is no exception.
Website: http://www.oldmutualwealth.co.uk.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 8.5. Gold
Tags: CI; Old Mutual