Many people today enjoy higher living standards than the wartime generation, but we are also facing a global health and wellbeing crisis.
Modern lifestyles have contributed to a surge in chronic diseases that are responsible for 74% of all deaths worldwide, up from 61% in the last decade, according to the World Economic Forum.
But 80% of those illnesses, which include heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, can be prevented with simple changes to everyday habits.
Life insurers and brokers, who have a vested interest in the health of their policyholders, can provide incentives that lead to consumers’ improved wellbeing. In turn, insurers benefit as healthier clients who live longer make fewer claims.
By providing value-added benefits to prompt clients to adopt healthier lifestyles, insurers are in tune with a growing awareness of the importance of health.
A study by HSBC found that having a healthy mind and body were top of the list of what respondents considered a good quality life
Last year, researchers found that British people were exercising 18 minutes more per week than two years ago (Nuffield Health, 2024), while 70% of the UK public feels that mental health is worse for young people today compared to when they were young (Kings College London, 2024).
A study by HSBC (HSBC, 2024) found that having a healthy mind and body were top of the list of what respondents considered a good quality life, and a report by Vitality showed that people who do extra exercise every week could add as much as five years to their life expectancy.
Additional benefits that life insurance policies can offer include nutritional advice, mental-health checks, gym membership and access to mental-health counselling services, as well as more standard benefits such as access to GPs.
Increasingly, life-insurance policies offer additional benefits, and it is incumbent on brokers to look for these benefits when recommending which policies consumers should purchase.
However, making policyholders aware of the benefits they are entitled to can prove difficult.
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To many consumers, a life insurance policy is taken out to protect their loved ones in the event of death. After signing the policy, they give it little more thought and usually the next engagement with the life insurer is when a person dies, and a claim is made.
A question for life insurance brokers to consider is when to introduce these benefits to the customer – before or after sale – and how they are best communicated.
Often, the policyholder becomes ‘word blind’ as they are bombarded with information at the point of sale. And while many of the add-ons may seem irrelevant earlier in the lifecycle of the policy, they may have significant changes later in life such as children, illness and bereavement. Researchers at LV= (LV=, 2025) found that 56% of working people have experienced at least one life event in the last three years where protection might have supported them.
It is important, then, that insurers and brokers keep in touch with the customer as the years go by to remind them of the benefits available to them. Reassured is currently undergoing a deep dive into its post-sale communications to understand this area better and improve signposting added-value benefits to the customer.
Often, the policyholder becomes ‘word blind’ as they are bombarded with information at the point of sale
Additional benefits are also a way of helping clients faced with long NHS waiting lists and difficulties getting an appointment, making access to expert medical advice as part of a life policy more and more attractive.
LV’s claims report found that 15% of workers have experienced a delay in getting a GP appointment, 9% have experienced a mental-health issue and continued to work, and 5% took more than two months out of work for mental-health reasons.
Life insurance value add-ons provide access to expert medical services that are offered to the client, their spouse/partner and children under 16. The use of LV doctor services increased by 20% last year compared to 2023, with 15% of 24/7 remote GP appointments made for children. The biggest increase in demand was for mental-health support, where usage rose by 61%.
These are just some of the factors that make it more important than ever for life-insurance brokers to find the policies that can offer the best additional mental and physical health benefits for consumers.
Lucy Brown is insurer partnerships director at Reassured
