Protection Guru aims to improve critical illness definitions

Protection Guru has announced the launch of a medical initiative aimed at improving patient outcomes for those with critical illness (CI) policies.

The initiative, “Designed by Doctors” is a series of recommended and updated examples of CI definitions covering conditions such as heart attacks, total permanent disability and multiple sclerosis, among others.

The ambition is to improve the clarity of policy wordings to ensure alignment with the latest medical practice.

Protection Guru said it has brought together an independent medical committee of doctors and epidemiologists to create new example wordings for CI policies.

The committee revisited 10 CI conditions to identify unnecessary complexity and obsolete medical terminology.

The move has been welcomed by the likes of The Consumer Duty Alliance and LifeSearch.

Protection Guru said CI policies, which are legal documents and by nature must include complex medical terms, should be easy for qualified medical professionals to understand, which is not always the case.

It added that this is the test the medical committee has applied in creating these new standards.

Protection Guru founder Ian McKenna said: “By producing our example wordings for clarity and accuracy, we can offer insurers and reinsurers impartial guidance on keeping their policies in line with contemporary medical practice. Since we launched our original critical illness benchmarking in 2017, we have been able to work with many individual insurers to simplify and improve wordings for consumers. This is the next phase of this work through which we are looking to raise standards across the industry.”

He added: “It is crucial to recognise we are not seeking to encourage adoption of a single or standard CI wording. That would be counterproductive. Stimulating competition is core to our objectives. We are, however, looking to demonstrate that wordings can be better than they are today.

“As CI policies were originally invented by a doctor, the late Marius Barnard, we see reengaging with medical professionals as a very natural step to protect consumers.”

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Critical Illness wordings were first benchmarked in 1991 by the National Federation of independent financial advisers, which subsequently became the IFA Association and IFA Portfolio.

Adviser firms using the Protection Guru Pro service will next year be able to use a “Designed by Doctors” assessment when recommending insurers who meet the medical committee’s benchmarks for clarity and reflect latest medical practice.

Commenting on the new wordings, Dr Adam Hazel, chair of the Protection Guru independent medical panel and founder of Harley Street-based Tyburn Medical Practice said: “Medicine, diagnostics and treatment is moving at a pace never seen before and is continuing to accelerate. It cannot be in the interests of consumers for policy wordings to be based on measurements and diagnostic techniques that the medical profession has moved on from.”

Johnny Timpson, the Financial Inclusion Commissioner added: “Consumer research has shown previously that one of the reasons consumers buy critical illness plans is the certainty of a payout they can rely on. This only works properly for them if we keep wordings as clear as possible and in line with medical practice. It is essential the definitions are both accurate and keep patient outcomes front of mind.”

McKenna stressed this new work does not conflict with the existing work by the Association of British Insurers on minimum standards which was passed over from the IFAA in 1999.

He said he does not expect every company to use the same wording as that would “stifle innovation”.

This work has been a few months in the making and Protection Guru plans to expand from the initial 10 conditions later down the line.

It said it will prioritise the conditions which need the most change and are most likely to involve a claim.