Insurers appear to be sticking to their guns on maintaining the lifting of Covid underwriting restrictions despite prime minister Boris Johnson’s delay of the easing of restrictions in England to mid July.
Yesterday Johnson confirmed the midsummer’s aim for the final stage of easing lockdown restrictions would be postponed from 21 June to 19 July amid rising cases of the Delta variant.
The PM’s announcement came on the day Legal & General joined a host of protection insurers, including Aviva, Vitality, LV= and Royal London, in lifting Covid underwriting restrictions first introduced as the country entered lockdown last year.
Health & Protection contacted those insurers to find out if they were rethinking their approach given the PM’s announcement.
A spokesperson for Aviva said it was continuing to monitor the data but had no plans at this time to amend its current practice irrespective of the announcement from government.
Likewise, a Royal London spokesperson revealed the insurer was continuing to monitor the situation and had no current plans to reintroduce underwriting restrictions.
John Downes, director of underwriting and claims at Vitality, agreed the insurer was taking a similar approach.
“Earlier this month we made the decision to remove most of the temporary underwriting restrictions put in place at the height of the pandemic,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and evolve our underwriting in response to the changing circumstances.”
And Justin Harper, head of protection marketing at LV=, told Health & Protection the insurer was continually reviewing underwriting practices as more was learned about Covid and its variants.
“We have responded throughout the pandemic guided by our principle-led approach: do the right thing, be fair and focus on those affected with full transparency,” he said.
“As the first in the mainstream market to remove underwriting restrictions for chronic medical conditions and first to reopen income protection for shorter waiting periods, we will continue to monitor the risks and only change our approach when the evidence supports it.”
