The protection sector is placing greater focus on explaining and preventing misrepresentation as part of the application process.
Dave Thomson, senior claims technical manager at Scottish Widows highlighted the importance of getting the application right first time meant the industry can better fulfil its promise of paying out claims.
Speaking on and Income Protection Action Week, Thomson noted there had been a change in how insurers were addressing and prioritising their claims paid rates.
“There’s definitely been a focus over the years of insurers focusing on their claims paid rate, and that seems to be the focus – look at how many claims we’ve paid,” Thomson said.
“I’ve definitely seen a shift.
“Within Scottish Widows we’ve been doing this more recently; really being transparent about misrepresentation and the reasons for it because they’re the claims you don’t pay.”
‘A claims promise’
Thomson added his view had always been that protection was a long term product with a long-term promise.
“Do you want to sit there in 10 years time and [when] you need to make a claim and we say, ‘Sorry, you didn’t fill this application out correctly’,” he continued.
“So it’s about being transparent about the reasons why and really trying to educate the advisers to talk about the questions.
“Some of them might be difficult, but if you get the application correct, then you’ve basically got a claims promise there,” he added.