Group income protection could become “much more mainstream” following the Mayfield review.
This is according to Christian van Stolk, vice president of Rand Europe, (pictured), who was speaking at Western Provident Association’s (WPA) Health Beyond Benefits event at the Lanesborough Hotel in London’s West End earlier this week.
Last November, Sir Charlie Mayfield, the former chairman of John Lewis, was charged by government with leading an independent review focusing on what more employers can do to tackle economic inactivity due to ill-health and disability.
The review will also look into what the government would need to do to encourage and support people living with ill-health and disabled people in work.
Learning lessons from abroad
And according to van Stolk, Mayfield’s appearances on Radio 4’s Today programme has led him to believe that the review’s findings will be informed by lessons learned from beyond the UK’s shores.
“In terms of learning from other systems around the world, Charlie is definitely going in that direction,” van Stolk maintained.
“That has a couple of consequences in terms of everybody here in the room.
“It will probably indicate employers have to do more.”
Different regulation
As well as putting more money into benefits, van Stolk said he expects employers could be regulated slightly differently following the review.
“They might have to disclose certain things that they’re not currently disclosing,” he continued.
“There will probably be very targeted support from the government towards SMEs that are struggling with this agenda, so that will clearly be the case.”
Much more IP
And in terms of shifting risk from the state to the employer when it comes to worker inactivity, van Stolk anticipated that the question will need to be asked as to where employers are on income protection.
“Because income protection might be really low cost benefit that could feed into this quite extensively,” he continued.
“So there could be certain products that become much more mainstream than they currently are.”