Personalised underwriting approaches – an insurer’s view

Specialist income protection insurer and IPTF member, Dentists’ Provident looks at its personalised underwriting approach and how its members benefit from an individual approach.

IPTF adviser research suggests that adviser perceptions of underwriting for income protection are often the biggest barrier to sales of income protection.

At Dentists’ Provident, a leading specialist income protection provider for the dental industry, we believe every individual is different and as such their experience is different. Some years ago, we made the decision to physically underwrite each application.  We also empowered our highly skilled team of underwriters to be flexible and creative with their decisions. This has produced better claim outcomes, fewer complaints and improved persistency.

Examples of client support

Our underwriting team always look at the whole picture rather than taking a mechanical approach. We go to great lengths to understanding our customers’ health, professional and financial circumstances when assessing applications, to ensure a fair and reasonable outcome.

“An example earlier this year included a dentist with multifaceted conditions.  Due to their hereditary condition, in most instances the application would have been declined, but we worked closely with our chief medical officer, the applicant and their intermediary, to identify a solution, which may not have been available in the general market,” says Sarah Ward, Underwriter from Dentists’ Provident.

View from an intermediary

“Dentists’ Provident is flexible and their friendly and helpful staff are always willing to do what they can to help. Being a specialist insurer means less anonymous-feeling relationships and quicker answers to questions and resolutions to problems,” says Vinay Rathod from VR Financial Solutions.

“There is a real benefit in having the ear of the people who make decisions and changes, as well as having individuals look at each of our client cases,” he adds.

The dental market

Last year was an exciting year for Dentists’ Provident, and the wider income protection market in general, as more and more advisers are recognising the importance of having an income protection plan in place for their clients.

Income protection plans are typically thought about at significant life milestones such as taking out a mortgage or starting a family, but a change to a person’s job is equally important. These plans are long term contracts, so flexibility to cater for these moments is a valuable feature to look for when making a recommendation. Within the dental profession, we are seeing more people making the move to private dentistry which means losing the safety net of their NHS sickness pay, so it’s great to see financial advisers keeping their clients’ income protection needs under review and taking proactive steps to make the changes when needed.

To find out more about how Dentists’ Provident can help your clients, contact our Head of Intermediary Relationships Peter Dunn on 020 7400 5710 or peter.dunn@dentistsprovident.co.uk