Unum has announced a range of enhancements to its group income protection (GIP) products including the inclusion of an option that allows all costs associated with a worker being absent due to illness or injury to be covered under one policy.
The provider’s associated business cost option covers a range of costs, including those relating to a pension, national insurance contributions, holiday pay. It also covers the cost of other benefits, such as group life cover, private medical insurance (PMI), company car or mobile phone.
Wojciech Dochan, head of commercial marketing at Unum, said: “Employers are increasingly looking to cover the costs associated with an employee being off sick long-term and while some expenses, such as employer pension contributions and NI contributions, can often be covered by GIP policies, there are so many more expenses that can’t.
“Employers will benefit from a simpler approach, getting coverage for their costs associated with an employee being absent for a long period due to illness or injury in one benefit.”
Unum has also removed any time limits for the duration of secondments, meaning employers no longer need to notify Unum about employee secondments. Cover for members temporarily absent for reasons other than ill health is now automatic for a period of three years, provided they are declared in the membership data and premium is paid in respect of them.
In addition, Unum limited term policies will now allow multiple claims as long as the employee completes a successful return to work in between claims. For linked claims, benefits will restart at the previous amount and will be reviewed to take account of any increases on completion of an assumed deferred period from the date the absence starts again.
For more articles on group risk
The market has been quite stagnant for some time and given the average employees lifespan at a company is no more than 3 years the products needed to change with the times. Group income protection has always been an interesting one, although with products now available which are more appropriate to todays work enviroment a group scheme could remove the burden of long term sickness and utilise the resources the insurers have to deal with these cases.