Legal & General targeted The Exeter’s income protection (IP) claims assessors as part of a recruitment drive on LinkedIn last year, according to the mutual’s CEO.
In response L&G said it did not specifically target any company’s IP claims assessors when recruiting.
The issue was discussed during the insurer leaders’ panel at Health & Protection‘s inaugural Protection Forum in the City of London last week.
When quizzed about concerns around IP claims performance raised by protection adviser and delegate Dr Sheun Oke, Isobel Langton, CEO of The Exeter (pictured) highlighted there had been a increase in IP purchases over the last year.
As a result this had left a shortage of income protection claims assessors and other similarly qualified staff within the sector to deal with the surge in claims.
Langton noted that income protection assessors were “thin on the ground”.
“I think the reason income protection claims are struggling at the moment is because there has been an explosion in income protection being sold – and certainly from our point of view, it’s not a lack of desire to recruit more income protection assessors – they’re just thin on the ground,” Langton said.
“And even last year, there was a massive campaign from L&G on LinkedIn that literally targeted all of our income protection assessors to offer them more money.
“What you don’t realise when you go into income protection sales is that claims come very quickly and if you’re not prepared for that, then you do end up straining the market around income protection assessment.”
But when contacted by Health and Protection, Legal & General issued a statement saying: “Like many organisations we use a number of tools and processes to support our recruitment efforts.
“LinkedIn is a part of this, but we don’t target specific businesses. We primarily search based on the skills which best match the job specification.”