Ask the Expert: A word on ‘referred’
Different companies use different definitions when it comes to application statuses and what needs to happen at each point in the journey.
In the spirit of demystifying things and making it easier for you to do business with us, we wanted to have a word on referred.
Let’s start at the beginning.
When an application generates a ‘refer’ decision you’ll see this signposted on the decision screen:
Note: To submit the application to our underwriting experts for assessment don’t forget to click the ‘continue’ button.
The status of the application will show ‘decision referred’ when viewed from the ‘My Applications’ section of the adviser portal. You can see what this looks like below:
Note: The ‘status’ will show in the tracking overview of your ‘My applications’.
This means it’s awaiting action by you to submit it to our underwriters for assessment.
You can do this by simply retrieving the application and pressing ‘continue’.
Until you do this we won’t be able to assess the application or make a decision, so it’s important to remember to press the ‘continue’ button. This will nudge the application into our team of underwriting experts so we can get things moving for you and your client.
Once the application has been submitted to our underwriting experts for assessment, the status will be updated to ‘In Underwriting’ in your adviser portal.
When our underwriters have completed their assessment you’ll receive a further notification to let you know and the status will update again based on the decision outcome.
You can see an explanation of each of the different statuses and what they mean here:
| Application status displayed | What it means |
|---|---|
| Incomplete pre-decision | The application has been started, but you’ve not yet progressed far enough to get an underwriting decision. |
| Decision referred | The application needs you to refer it to our underwriters for assessment. This can be done by clicking the ‘continue’ button on the decision screen. |
| In Underwriting | The application has been submitted to our underwriters and will be assessed as soon as we have all the necessary information. |
| Accepted | The application has been accepted / a decision has been made and is awaiting you to issue the policy. |
| Revised Terms | The application has been accepted but on revised (alternative) terms. This could include a rating, loading or exclusion or we may have declined part of the cover / benefits requested based on the health & lifestyle information provided. This application is awaiting you to issue the policy. |
| Declined | We’re unable to offer cover or terms based on the information provided. |
| Deferred | The application has been postponed. This could include scenarios where information is awaited, for example test or investigation results. |
| Issued | The application has been issued. |
| Closed | The application has been closed, either by Zurich or the adviser. |
Based directly on your feedback in this space we’ll be making further changes later this year to help make things even clearer, so keep an eye out for more information coming soon.
Need some help with a particular aspect of our journey?
Reach out to your Protection Consultant and we’ll be happy to help with future articles and webinars designed to give you the know-how you need to make it even easier to do business with us.
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