The Association of British Insurers (ABI) is committing further funds to keep its free mental health e-learning course open for an another year to complete its goal of training 5,000 adviser and insurer frontline staff.
The ABI launched the CII accredited e-learning modules provided by RightSteps to ensure frontline staff at insurers and advisers are equipped to support customers with mental health conditions throughout the application and claims processes.
So far since 2021 2,323 people have completed 6,159 courses.
The organisation also committed to reviewing its mental health and insurance hub on its website and to better explaining why and how specific data points like mental health are used in the industry.
It will continue engaging with the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute to understand whether further actions are required.
Implementing mental health standards
The commitments follow publication of a new report which surveying the organisation’s members across health, protection and travel insurance to understand how ABI Mental Health and Insurance Standards have been implemented by firms.
The standards were launched in September 2020 to better support the needs of people with prior or existing mental health conditions when applying for insurance and aim to drive consistency and best practice across the three insurance lines.
Twenty two ABI members provided feedback to the survey.
The report’s findings show that all firms surveyed have taken steps to improve the accessibility of their communications, such as offering customers different choices of how to contact them.
The vast majority (94%) of firms said that, upon a customer’s request, they explain what evidence is used to inform the underwriting approach.
A similar number (88%) said they included an introduction in their underwriting questions to manage consumer expectations and the remaining 12% confirmed they had taken alternative actions to help with this.
Eight in 10 (81%) firms surveyed also said they regularly reviewed written and verbal communications about underwriting decisions and made mental health exclusions highly prominent in policy documents and any relevant communications.
The ABI pointed out these figures were slightly lower because travel insurers generally do not exclude any mental or physical conditions from their products and often use a third-party to assess and communicate underwriting decisions on pre-existing health conditions.
Yvonne Braun, director of health and protection policy at the ABI, (pictured) said: “Our industry wants to make it straightforward for customers with mental health conditions to access its products, and it’s good to see that our members have made progress.
“The industry still has more work to do though, and we’re committed to working with firms and mental health experts to drive this forward.”