The 12 insurers that met the criteria were Beagle Street, Cirencester Friendly, Guardian, Holloway Friendly, HSBC Life, Legal & General, LV=, National Friendly, Royal London, Scottish Widows, Shepherds Friendly and The Exeter.
Beagle Street, Legal & General, LV=, National Friendly, Scottish Widows and The Exeter were the new signatories this year.
Life claims payments have been a key focus of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) since November, when it demanded significant improvements, with many insurers failing to meet performance levels, and called for industry-wide approaches to tackle common concerns.
Last week, FCA director of insurance Matt Brewis explained the regulator was working with insurers and the government to explore quicker ways of finding out that somebody has passed away to speed up claims.
‘Insurers working incredibly hard’
Emma Thomson, vice chairperson of the PDG (pictured), told Health & Protection that the increase in insurers meeting the charter “has been fantastic to see” and acknowledged that even those who had not made it had improved.
“In total we had eight last year, but obviously only six were open to business, so we’ve got six insurers that didn’t make the charter last year now making it, which is fantastic,” she said.
“The insurers have been working incredibly hard, but we know the charter is one element that’s encouraged them to make those improvements and invest in their claims experiences."
“That’s something we are really proud of with the charter.”
Last year, the charter was updated to introduce two new criteria relating to the maximum time taken to assess both claims forms and medical evidence once received, at three and five working days, respectively.
This followed advisers raising concerns about the time taken to assess claims.
As a result, the number of insurers meeting this declined to eight, two of which included the Aegon and AIG brands, which have closed to new business.
But with 12 insurers this year, that number has effectively doubled.
She noted, “We have had more before, but we changed the criteria.”
More to come
But Thompson hopes that there will be even more signatories before the end of the year.
She said, “We saw a marked improvement across the board – so even those that haven’t made it, we still recognise that improvements have been made – which is why I’m really confident that we will see some others be added before the year is out."
“I’m really hopeful for two more, because they were very close indeed,” she added.
Although the number of signatories has effectively doubled since last year, the number had been higher in the past, but Thomson is adamant the charter should be used to keep driving higher standards.
Thomson said, “We have had more. Before we changed the criteria, we had pretty much every insurer out there."
“We possibly had 14 or 15 at the peak, but last year shook things up a little bit."
“That was the right thing to do – the purpose of a charter is to raise standards and to continue to raise standards and continue to raise standards."
“So that's why it needed to evolve as the market requirements evolved."
“And while changing the criteria last year, a lot of insurers lost their status – it's demonstrated what can be achieved."
“The insurers should be very proud of the achievements that they’ve made in the last 12 months.“
Assessment times improved
The PDG said it was impressed there had been widespread improvement by insurers regarding the time taken to assess claims compared to last year’s results.
It added that even where charter status had not been achieved, for some firms it had been only by a slight margin.
The Claims Charter was introduced in 2018 to improve outcomes for claimants by raising basic levels of best practice undertaken by insurers.
The charter sets out a number of criteria which must be met before an insurer can become a signatory.
Thomson added: “We have been engaging closely with a number of insurers on the time to assess claims and know how much additional investment and time has been put into this most important aspect of our industry to raise standards."
“All insurers have demonstrated through the survey some wonderful work they’re doing to support claimants, and it was really heartening to see a significant improvement in the time to assess claims, even by those who haven’t quite managed charter status.”
