Legal & General Insurance and Salary Finance have launched a digital group insurance platform that enables employees to dial up or down cover across group life, income protection and critical illness and buy extra cover on a voluntary basis.
The solution, called Protect, is aimed at businesses with 500+ employees, and aims to bring employees a seamless 24/7 digital experience, extending access group life, income protection and critical Illness cover to entire workforces at no extra cost for the employer.
According to L&G, says the flexibility to change benefit levels offers a level of personalisation not found anywhere else in the market.
Employees can access cover on either an employer-paid or voluntary basis. L&G says voluntary income protection is unique in the group market.
Protect provides the flexibility to offer a core level of cover paid for by the employer, with cover top-ups available at competitive prices. Cover can be adjusted 24/7, 365 days a year, with no tie-ins and no need to wait for a once-a-year window to make changes.
L&G has removed the pre-existing condition exclusions on critical illness cover with upfront digital medical underwriting, which brings more certainty at time of claim. Cover can be arranged in minutes, with instant decisions and generally no medicals required.
The set-up and implementation of the Protect solution comes at no cost for employers. HR communication support is also included to help encourage employees to engage with their benefits, and to help them understand how they can use the embedded mental health and wellbeing support services.
Legal & General Insurance CEO Bernie Hickman said: “Protect is a highly digital experience that brings amazing simplicity and great value to employers and employees. It is designed to generate a greater return on benefits spend, with higher engagement, leading to healthier, happier employees and reduced absence. Combining the low cost of group cover with the personalisation of retail products, we can give comprehensive and totally flexible cover at highly competitive prices.
“With Protect we’re engaging employees in the importance of insuring what is their most valuable asset: their ability to work and earn a living.
“To achieve this, we want to work with intermediaries to drive innovation in the group protection market, the way a tech company would. If we don’t, a tech start-up or a big tech company is likely to do it without us.”