Voluntary benefits

Products and services that you do not fund can be offered to employees as voluntary benefits. You ‘sponsor’ sales through workplace promotion, allowing your employees access to  terms that can usually be more favourable than if they individually purchased cover directly.

Our voluntary group protection plans are normally delivered through a ‘group’ contract between you and us.

There are some plans available where you could offer the facility for employees to take out  cover for their spouse. Where we mention spouse or spouse and partner, this can be the employee's; spouse, registered  civil partner and unmarried partner. Further  details can be found in the technical guide for the relevant product.

Our voluntary group protection benefits

Employees buy cover in either £10,000 or £25,000 units. The following normally apply:

voluntary group protection benefits
Life Assurance - employee* Life Assurance - Spouse & Partner* Critical Illness Cover – employee** Critical Illness Cover – spouse & partner**
Minimum membership – new scheme

2,500 potential employees joining (stand alone)

500 potential employees  joining (linked to a standard or flexible benefit Legal  & General  group protection scheme)
Minimum membership – existing scheme moving to L&G 100 inforce employees
Minimum annual total premium £2,000 per policy
Maximum individual benefit £250,000 £250,000 Lower of £250,000 or 5 x salary Lower of £150,000 or level of employee’s cover
Underwriting requirements Application form - initial cover and increases in cover Application form- initial cover and increases in cover Pre-existing and related condition exclusions Pre-existing and related condition exclusions
Max 'step' increase N/A (We will limit increases so a member’s total benefit is not higher than the maximum benefit) N/A (We will limit increases so a member’s total benefit is not higher than the maximum benefit) 1 or 2 steps, as agreed 1 or 2 steps, as agreed

* We issue separate policies for employee and for spouse & partner life assurance.
** We issue a single policy for employee and for spouse & partner critical illness cover.

Applications for life assurance or spouse & partner life assurance

It’s normally straightforward for new entrants and employees selecting higher cover levels. They can complete the appropriate application form. Our application forms can be found in our literature library. To help you with arrangements, you may find it useful to seek assistance from specialist advisers or online tools.

Our application forms will ask six health related questions, If they all can be answered ‘no’, the application has been successfully completed. If one or more of the questions is answered ‘yes’, it may still be possible to provide cover but the employee must provide more health related information. Our preferred way of gathering this information, is by telephone interview at a convenient time.

Applications for critical illness cover

We don’t ask for evidence of good health when the application is made. However, all new cover:

  • is subject to a pre-existing condition exclusion, and
  • can only take effect on the date the employee first becomes eligible, the annual renewal date or following a ‘lifestyle event’.

Please refer to the PDF file: Critical illness cover quote appendix PDF size: 251KB  for further details about the illnesses that can be covered and the pre-existing and related conditions exclusions.

See the relevant technical guides for more information about all the voluntary products we’ve mentioned: