Vitality strengthens its Serious Illness cover offering
- Vitality is streamlining its Serious Illness Cover product offering and enhancing the existing offering with the launch of three new products
- Vitality’s unique Dementia and FrailCare conversion to be automatically included within all Serious Illness Cover products
- Vitality also launched a new enhanced Child Serious Illness Cover benefit that will cover every child, from birth, and will mirror the adult version
9 February 2023 – Vitality has today announced a number of innovative changes today to its Serious Illness Cover that are designed to streamline its offering further, while continuing to provide comprehensive and market-leading cover.
Announced at an Adviser Launch, Vitality introduced three new and improved Serious Illness Cover products, with varying levels of cover available:
Serious Illness Cover 1X: covering 114 conditions on a severity-basis. It can pay out multiple times until all the cover amount is used.
Serious Illness Cover 2X: covering an additional 29 conditions to Serious Illness Cover 1X (totalling 143), paying out in full for 74 conditions. In addition to this broad illness cover, 2X gives members the security of full payouts by paying out in full for conditions typically covered in full by critical illness plans*. It pays out up to two times the level of cover chosen over the length of the plan through multiple claims.
Serious Illness Cover 3X: Vitality’s premier product, containing all the benefits of 2X, plus an additional 31 lower-severity conditions, covering 174 in total. Serious Illness Cover 3X covers every condition covered in market, alongside 60 conditions unique to Vitality, including the same conditions as 2X. It pays out up to three times the level of cover chosen over the length of the plan through multiple claims.
The changes to Vitality’s Serious Illness offering have been made by building on the successes of its existing offering**, and further developing them to streamline the advice process for advisers and retaining the best features of Serious Illness Cover, including cover for more conditions, severity-based payouts and the ability to claim multiple times on the same policy.
Vitality also announced two further changes today as part of its Serious Illness Cover offering:
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1. A simplification to Child Serious Illness Cover benefit. It will now cover all of a member's children at a single price. Cover includes congenital conditions and children’s funeral contribution as standard. Children additionally have access to the Vitality Programme at no extra cost, which includes additional benefits such as cinema tickets for children***.
2. All Serious Illness Cover plans will now include Vitality’s unique Dementia and FrailCare cover as standard. Cover will remain in place for as long as premiums are paid, and the opportunity to extend cover into retirement. This product, which is completely unique to Vitality, helps guard against the high costs of care associated with the diagnosis of a degenerative later life illness.
“We continue to refine and update our offering to ensure it continues to align with the changing nature of illness, whilst ensuring we offer a streamlined set of products that are simple for advisers to navigate and recommend to their clients.”
The changes will be automatically available on all new policies taken out after 28 February 2023, with existing Serious Illness Cover options replaced.
The Serious Illness Cover updates were announced at an Adviser Launch, which additionally announced updates to its Income Protection offering. This forms part of a number of innovative updates and launches from the business recently, including Vitality’s new direct to consumer offering, ActiveLife, which is focused on growing what is traditionally an uninsured market, launched earlier this year.
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Notes to editors
* Includes all those in the ABI guide to minimum standards
** Best Critical Illness Cover Moneyfacts 2022
*** Subject to a maximum of four cinema tickets, per family, per month. Children will qualify for Vitality Select or Plus based on the adult’s plan.