Zurich has made changes to its life non-medical limits for people under the age of 50, increasing the value of cover available without requiring medical evidence.
The changes affect the first level of evidence – the nurse medical exam – and the insurer said this would mean medical evidence will be needed less frequently at the point of sale.
“We’ve completed a full review of our customer journey and looked at ways we can make it easier for customers to obtain cover,” Zurich said.
“Following this, we have made some changes to our life non-medical limits for the under 50s.”
“The point at where we are requesting these has moved up, therefore we will be requesting less evidence at point of sale” it added.
“For example, for ages 45 to 49, the first point we will look to get evidence for non-medical limits is now £500,001 up from £400,001,” Zurich said. (see table above).
There will be no changes for people in the 35 to 29 age group or for people over the age of 50.
Empathy training
In a separate announcement Zurich UK revealed it has rolled out empathy training to its adviser-facing teams.
It comes after more than 100 customer-facing employees in its retail protection business had gone through the training and it is expected all 21,000 employees across the business will complete the programme.
The empathy training is designed to enhance employees’ self-awareness and increase their interpersonal skills.
The training allows employees to determine whether customers need detailed explanations or quick, high-level responses, and how emotionally engaged they need the call handler to be.
The insurer said its SME team was now training colleagues to handle brokers’ queries in the same way.
Pete Sanderson, head of retail protection operations at Zurich UK, said: “There isn’t a one size fits all approach to helping our customers, but one key element of success is acting with empathy.
“Customers quite rightly expect a high level of customer service. We’re proud of our how our empathy training is being received by customers and colleagues.”