Reassured has placed more than 30,000 customer policies into trust using its digital universal trust form.
Using this system increased Reassured’s return rate to 11% in March, up from 1% when it was launched in September 2023.
The offer has been designed to simplify and speed up how policyholders complete and return trusts after taking out life or critical illness insurance.
The life insurance industry has been encouraged to increase policyholder take-up of trusts or beneficiary nomination to direct the benefits of their plan or nominating a beneficiary in the policy.
This means the beneficiary receives the money directly rather than potentially waiting for an estate to go through a lengthy probate process. Those who leave the policy to an estate risk delays in their beneficiary receiving the payout or the money being handed to the wrong person.
Health & Protection’s latest Individual and Business Protection Report generally showed an uptick in the use of trusts or beneficiary nomination by customers.
Removed printing and signing process
Reassured’s digital form replaced the traditionally paper-based individual trust documents issued by insurers, which it said were difficult to access and required physical signatures.
In digitising the process, Reassured said it had removed the need for customers to download, print, sign and put documents in the post. It has also removed the need for a digital signature.
It added this made the process faster, simpler and, it is hoped, more efficient in that families receive their pay out quicker after making claim.
Reassured’s digital trust form has been accepted by major insurers, including Zurich, Aviva, Legal & General, LV=, Scottish Widows and Vitality.
Chief customer officer Laura McGraw said Reassured wanted to create a “digital, insurer-agnostic solution that makes life easier for customers” and she was pleased to see how many people were using it.
“It is great to see the Reassured trust is still fit for purpose and has provided the industry with a blueprint to overcome a previously outdated process, to the benefit of all customers,” she added.