Royal London has widened coverage on its critical illness (CI) cover by updating and adding definitions to expand the scope for claims.
As well as new additional cover conditions, Royal London announced its pay out is also increasing from £30k to £35k, to reflect increasing living costs and allow the mutual to better support clients’ needs.
The mutual said it has reviewed its definitions and processes, and identified how conditions can be improved to deliver long term value for its customers.
It added this latest update continues its journey to improving the customer experience, and follows the announcement that the business had updated its pre-sale underwriting tool to widen the scope of medical conditions covered from 60 to over 3,600.
Jennifer Gilchrist, protection expert at Royal London, (pictured) said: “As well as implementing ABI minimum standard changes, we have enhanced our critical illness cover by concentrating on cancer, severe mental health, type 1 diabetes, and bowel disease cover definitions.
“The changes have been driven by analysis of our claims experience and insight to maximise value and help deliver the best possible outcomes for customers.
“While we have made our definitions more precise, our aim is to provide improved clarity at the point of claim so we can enable quicker payments for customers at their point of need.”
Alan Lakey, director at CIExpert, said it was “heart-warming” to see a major protection insurer affirm its commitment to the market by increasing both the quality and the amounts being paid out for critical illness claims.
“Additional payments for bowel disease and cutaneous lymphoma are both unique to Royal London and the improvements secure their position as a top-quality critical illness provider,” Lakey continued.
Lakey added CIExpert is always supportive when an insurer expands its coverage and improves or clarifies the claims wordings.
“Royal London has extended its cancer coverage by widening the scope of its cancer definition as well as the addition of cutaneous lymphoma and also enhancing its skin cancer wording,” he said.
“Royal London also treads new ground by providing two payment levels for bowel disease – an additional payment for one bowel resection and a full payment for two resections or colectomy.
“Four additional payment conditions have been added and the monetary increase to the additional payment conditions also provides added value.
“It is beneficial to have a vigorous protection market where competition encourages innovation and Royal London has reaffirmed its commitment to advisers and the protection market. A welcome flag-raising given the recent reduction to market participants.”
Gilchrist concluded: “When it comes to critical illness cover, there’s been a fairly consistent pattern of claims being paid over a long period of time.
“We have added and changed definitions now as it’s important that cover continues to evolve to keep pace with medical science and concentrates on conditions where we can provide improved outcomes for customers now and in the future.”