Scottish Widows – Approach to Critical Illness Cover

I wanted to chat with you about Critical Illness Cover and remind you of the importance of having this conversation with your clients.
Our average age of claimants last year was just 51 years old*. And year on year, we’ve seen that cancer continues to be the most common reason for claims.
The good news is that more people are surviving critical illnesses than ever before. But could your clients cope financially if they got diagnosed with a critical condition?
Our approach to our critical illness definitions is to make them easy to understand, more inclusive and most importantly focused on the areas where we will pay most claims. Our adviser guide gives you a brief overview of our cover and definitions.
  • We cover conditions that may increase the likelihood of your client’s illness being covered. These include the main causes of claim – cancer, heart attack, stroke and MS. We also cover things like less advanced cancers, heart surgeries and some neurological conditions.
  • Our cover includes total permanent disability and children’s cover.
  • By having definitions that cover a wide scope, this can increase the opportunities for your clients to receive a payout. For example, our deafness decibel criteria is now 70.
To make it simpler to explain our cover, we group our 30 main conditions into 5 categories: Brain and Neurological, Heart and Arteries, Organs, Cancer, and Senses. We also cover several conditions specifically for children. This, along with our handy interactive body visual, means your clients can see what they are covered for, and you can share our Critical Illness Cover client guide with them.
I’d be delighted to chat with you but in the meantime you can find out more on our dedicated adviser webpage.
Source* Scottish Widows, Claim stats 2022