The insurance industry will struggle to make headway with the government unless the conversation changes around group income protection – and this will be a lost opportunity for the industry.
This is an issue that was raised a week ago by Legal & General Group Protection, which launched its inaugural Chief Medical Officer report. The report centres on ‘good work is beneficial for health’. It discusses the role of the industry in helping employers ensure sustainable prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation practices, including guidance for getting started and avenues of ongoing support.
The majority of people develop disabilities – as opposed to being born with a disability – many of them at working age. It’s this kind of issue that I’m currently in discussions with Parliament about, as part of my work on the ‘Supporting Healthy Ageing at Work’ (Shaw) project, run through the University of Edinburgh, and funded by the Government’s UK Research & Innovation department. This three-year study is working with employers, employees, professional bodies and other key stakeholders, to support the health and wellbeing of older workers (aged 50+).
In our ageing population, the health service faces huge challenges. NHS and primary care have become chronic health services due to resource issues. So, we need to look long and hard at helping people age well in the workplace across all the dimensions; physical, emotional, social and financial.
We need to champion prevention; help keep people in good work and help them thrive. And, when a problem occurs, we need to intervene early and prevent them dropping out of the workforce.
The GIP industry has been talking about added value services for some time. But the central focus still comes back to claims reporting. The best claim is not having one at all. And here, a load of good work goes unseen in terms of insurers intervening early, supporting people to return to work within the deferred period. And, where a claim is in payment, rehabilitating quickly and effectively.
In my opinion, there’s a lost opportunity here. But we need the data to bring this to life; an independent, central organisation to work with all GIP providers to create a prevention, return, rehabilitation and [financial] resilience dashboard. All providers reporting like-for-like return to work data.
This will help us have conversations about the benefits this industry can bring to UK business and the economy, with the likes of the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Health and Social Care and the Treasury.
Any conversations and collaborations with Government will require financing from both Government and industry. So, a business case is needed. Hence the need for data.
Also, case studies would be a big help. A dashboard would be great, but qualitative as well as quantitative data is needed. This May sees the 10th anniversary of the first ever 7Families campaign – an industry-wide campaign to raise awareness of individual income protection. We need a 7Companies version; one that includes various industry sectors that are key to the UK economy, with perspectives from employees, their families and their employers. A message on what all this means for the wider economy should underpin everything.
We can then play this back to Parliament and devolved Assemblies. But we can’t tap into this wide open opportunity unless there’s a genuine change in conversation.