Deferred Period

• Automatically included

Your client can choose to defer payment of their benefit for 4, 13, 26 or 52 weeks.

Stepped Benefit

• Optional

Stepped Benefit provides a more affordable option to help clients with a restricted budget. Two levels of monthly benefit can be chosen with two different deferred periods. This first level of benefit can be set lower with a deferred period that coincides with the reduction in sick pay income from an employer. The second level of benefit is paid out later when sick pay stops altogether. Not available with the Low Cost Option.

Low Cost Option

• Optional

Low Cost Option provides a more affordable option to help clients with a restricted budget. The benefit for any individual claim is limited to 24 months.  Multiple claims can be made. For a houseperson, after the monthly benefit has been paid for 24 months, which does not need to be consecutive, the policy will end. Low Cost Option is cheaper than full cover but is not available with Stepped Benefit.

Continuous Cover

• Automatically included

Cover will continue if your client goes on statutory maternity/paternity/adoption leave, becomes unemployed or goes on a career break.   

Hospitalisation Benefit

• Automatically included

A payment of 1/30th of the monthly benefit, up to a maximum of £150 per night, will be made for each additional night the client spends in hospital after staying there for seven consecutive nights.

The payments will continue until the client leaves hospital, their deferred period ends, after 13 weeks of a hospital stay, the policy ends or the client dies, whichever is earliest.

Income Guarantee

• Automatically included

If the client needs to make a claim, and their salary is lower than it was when they bought the product, the monthly benefit we pay will be based on the lower of £1,500 per month or the monthly benefit at the start of their plan. This could be made up of a combination of continuing income alongside the monthly benefit.

The Policy Summary gives examples of how this works.

Life Cover

• Automatically included

If your client dies while the plan is in place, we'll pay out an amount equal to their annual premium, or 12 times the monthly premium.

Linked Claims

• Automatically included

If, on returning to work, your client becomes incapacitated from the same or related cause within 12 months, payment of the monthly benefit will resume immediately. If your client has the Low Cost Option, the linked claim will only be possible if the most recent claim did not reach a total 24 monthly benefit payments.

Proportionate Benefit

• Automatically included

If, following a claim, your client returns to work in a different job or a lower income, as a direct result of the illness or incapacity, the monthly benefit will be reduced in proportion to the reduction in their earnings (from the 12 months before incapacity). Proportionate Benefit ends when earnings return to pre-incapacity level or the claim ends.

Rehabilitation Support Service

• Automatically included

Offers qualifying claimants access to a specialist rehabilitation team who will build a structured return to work programme.

Waiver of Premium

• Automatically included

After your client's deferred period has ended, premiums will be waived for the duration of a valid claim whilst the monthly benefit is being paid.

Changing Your Policy (also known as Guaranteed Insurability Option)

• Automatically included

Allows your client to increase their monthly benefit subject to eligibility criteria without providing further medical evidence:

• If they get a salary increase as a result of a new job or promotion,
• If they increase their mortgage due to a house move or major home improvements,
• every third policy anniversary.

Your client can change their plan up to three times in total and must make the change within six months of the event.

Some restrictions apply, but full details about when and how clients can change their policy can be found in our Product Profiles.

Other changes

• Automatically included

We will consider requests to make other changes to your client’s plan as well. If changes are made to the plan, then a new plan may be set up and different terms and conditions could apply.