Scottish Widows Critical Illness cover
Scottish Widows has made a number of changes to its critical illness products, around two main areas:
Consolidating some definitions.
Updating, widening and adding others.
In more detail, the key changes are:
A new additional payment condition of carcinoma in situ with surgery widens cover in this area and incorporates the old headings of carcinoma in situ of the breast; cervix uteri; endometrium; oesophagus, and testes. The benefit pays the lower of £25,000 or 25% of the sum insured. Four other carcinoma in situ definitions (for bladder, prostate, ovarian and pituitary) are retained as they have a more precise claim wording.
For children’s cover, the qualifying age for children’s claims has been increased by one year, from 21 to 22.
Nine definitions have been changed. The nine are: benign brain tumour; brain injury/anoxia/hypoxia; cardiomyopathy; coma; dementia; intensive care; liver failure; motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s.
The previous drug and alcohol exclusion has been removed for a number of conditions.
The previous separate definitions for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia have been combined into one definition.
Comment: CI is hard for consumers to fully understand and the trend over recent years to add more and more conditions just added to that. Now however, that trend appears to be reversing, with insurers looking to amalgamate similar conditions under a more generic heading.
For advisers, that makes life simpler, but it also means the old rule of thumb that ‘more is better’ simply no longer applies (if it ever did). Instead, what is really important to customers is ‘what percentage of all potential CI claims does this policy cover’. Unfortunately we are no nearer being able to answer that question, although analysis by CIExpert suggests Scottish Widows’ changes certainly add up to more potential claims being covered.
The bottom line is that these are changes we welcome and should add to the appeal of Scottish Widows’ CI cover.
Plus points: Some conditions have been amalgamated; Others have been improved or added; Children now covered up to age 22.
Not so plus points: You can no longer judge how good a CI plan is by asking ‘how many conditions does it cover?’ (OK, you never could, but you can do so even less now…); Many children remain a financial drag on parents for some years beyond age 22 – having the option to cover them to older ages would be helpful to many parents.
Website: http://www.scottishwidows.co.uk.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 8.5. Gold
Tags: CI; Scottish Widows; Product enhancement