BUSINESS PERSON ELECT – WHAT’S NEW?

Over the last few months, the Life industry has increased its focus on disability cover. Many of our competitors have focused on marketing non-core benefits, often creating products that draw attention away from the core benefits necessary for comprehensive disability cover. A product designed by experts in income protection, Business Person Elect (BPE) now offers even more… 

BPE Enhancements 2013

Because we know the real disability risks our clients face every day, we’ve recently added additional optional benefits to our BPE offering for a holistic solution that is now even better! These enhancements include cover for individuals working past age 70, improvements to our existing family responsibility benefits, a new retrenchment benefit, and a comprehensive set of claims criteria.

More about our claims criteria…

We have always felt that occupation-based claim assessment is the best definition under which to provide income protection as it allows us to pay out a broad spectrum of claim events.

There is a perception in the market that occupation-based claim assessment can be a subjective process. And, while we are confident in our ability to assess claims on this basis, our research has shown that certain claims might proceed more quickly if assessed under more objective, medical criteria. Because we believe in offering our clients the best of both worlds, we have developed a holistic set of claim criteria, ensuring the highest possible pay-out for valid claims. These criteria include:

• Standard disability claim: We believe that the best way to assess the majority of disability claims is under our Occupational Disability definition. This means we assess the individual's ability to perform their stated duties and pay accordingly.
• Partial disability claim: For partial disabilities, the pay-out will be determined on a ‘percentage of disability’ basis, determining the percentage of their occupation the claimant is unable to perform and paying accordingly.

• Other ways to claim: Sometimes an occupational assessment can be subjective or the benefits paid out may not match the actual loss of income suffered. In these cases, the claimant may choose to have their claim assessed under our new:
  • Loss of Income underpin: the degree of disability is based on loss of income, determining the percentage of the cover amount to be paid. Claims can be assessed on this basis at any stage during the claim or within 30 days of the claim closing.
  • Functional Impairment underpin: specifies an objective medical severity and pay-out percentage for listed conditions. This underpin does not require proof of loss of income.

• Guaranteed minimum payment for specific conditions: Guaranteed benefits enable FMI to make fast initial claim payments on diagnosis, without under-going any further claims processes:
  • Guaranteed Minimum Period: On our temporary income protection and business overhead benefits, we will pay out the cover amount for specified fractures and conditions for a minimum payment period of 1, 2, or 3 months on confirmation of diagnosis.
  • Guaranteed Sickness Payment (only applies to primary waiting period): Restrictions are often placed on minor infections for Income Protection policies. At FMI, we know that a minor infection can have a serious effect on a person’s ability to work and treat these as valid claims with guaranteed pay-outs.

FMI is committed to paying valid claims quickly and smoothly. You can learn more about these criteria and the other BPE enhancements here.