Zurich Income Protection: Covering your customers when they’re not working

There are many reasons why a customer might not be in work at any given time. They could be taking a break from work to travel the world or write a book, they could be a contractor between jobs, or they could be on maternity, paternity or adoption leave to care for a baby or child.

Zurich’s refreshed income protection proposition has been designed to help customers who want the reassurance that their cover remains in place even during periods when they’re not working.

The changes we’ve made, and range of existing features, offer reassurance to customers that our income protection will be able to meet their needs regardless of their unique circumstances and how these might evolve over time. Let’s take a closer look.

Sabbatical cover

A new feature that we’ve introduced is Sabbatical Cover. This means that if an employed customer decides to take sabbatical breaks from their job of up to 12 months, they can continue to pay their premiums, and we’ll cover them as if they’re still working.

“Say a doctor, surgeon or dentist decides to take a year out,” says Tim Butler, proposition innovation manager at Zurich.

“They’ve got certainty that their job will be there when they return and they also want the certainty that if they fall ill when they’re on sabbatical, they’ll be treated as if they’re working and still be covered for the full amount.

“You can take multiple sabbaticals over the life of a policy, but there are rules around needing to go back to work for 12 months before you can take another one.”

Own occupation guarantee

Own occupation guarantee was part of our claims philosophy before and we now clearly state it in our terms and conditions to give customers who may not be in constant employment greater certainty and reassurance.

“In the new regulatory landscape, we want to be more explicit about how we would handle a situation whereby someone is not employed when they come to claim,” says Butler.

If your customer needs to make a claim within three months of leaving their last job, we’ll assess them based on their previous occupation and income. Restrictions apply to people leaving their job voluntarily or due to disciplinary action.

“Let’s say, for example, you’ve got a customer who is a contractor,” says Butler.

“They might do six months on three months off, or they might simply have periods of time when they’re out of work and looking for their next job.”

Contractors will inevitably have periods of time when they’re not employed and not able to evidence income. The cover also offers protection against involuntary redundancy.

“We want to provide a guarantee and level of certainty to customers who might have a period when they are not employed that if they become unable to work due to illness or injury, they will still have the safety net that their policy has been designed to provide,” adds Butler.

Maternity, paternity and adoption benefit

One of the most common reasons why a customer might take time off work is following the birth of a baby. Maternity, paternity and adoption benefit protects your customers while they’re on leave to look after their child. If your customer needs to make a claim while on parental leave for a child born or adopted in the last 12 months, we’ll assess their claim based on their job and income before their leave. This was a feature of the previous Zurich product.

“This provides reassurance to anyone who might have children in the future or choose to adopt,” says Butler.

Houseperson benefit

If your customer is not working when they claim, and hasn’t done so for more than 30 days, and doesn’t qualify for any of the features discussed above, we can still help. We will pay them the lower of £1,500 per month or the monthly benefit, provided they can’t do at least three of six specified daily living tasks. This feature is beneficial for anyone who is no longer working but would need an income if they became ill or injured, such as a stay-at-home parent.

Sick pay matching

Another new feature that’s worth mentioning here because it recognises the very varied needs of customers is sick pay matching.

“As advisers will know, you won’t be paid on the policy until you suffer a loss of income, so you need to build the policy around each customer’s sick pay arrangements,” says Butler.

Many people, however, work in occupations where the amount of sick pay they receive is relative to the number of years’ service. The NHS is the best example of this and that’s why we offer medical profession sick pay matching.

Previously only available to doctors and surgeons, we’ve extended this to dentists, nurses and midwives employed by the NHS or anyone in these occupations not working for the NHS but where their employer has adopted the sick pay structure provided by the NHS.

“We’ll match whatever their sick pay arrangement is at the point they fall ill. We’ll pay them 50% of the monthly benefit when their sick pay halves and 100% when it stops,” says Butler.