Protection Guru has unveiled a new critical illness initiative designed to simplify medical terms and “ensure the best possible patient outcomes.”
‘Designed by Doctors’ is a series of recommended and updated critical illness definitions created by an independent committee of doctors and epidemiologists covering conditions such as heart attacks, total permanent disability and multiple sclerosis among others.
The committee revisited 10 key conditions to identify unnecessary complexity and obsolete medical terminology.
By improving the clarity of policy wordings, Protection Guru said it hoped to improve patient outcomes and ensure alignment with the latest medical practice.
Ian McKenna, founder of Protection Guru, said: “By producing our example wordings for clarity and accuracy, we can offer insurers and reinsurers impartial guidance on keeping their policies in line with contemporary medical practice. Since we launched our original Critical Illness benchmarking in 2017, we have been able to work with many individual insurers to simplify and improve wordings for consumers. This is the next phase of this work through which we are looking to raise standards across the industry.”
McKenna said the firm was not seeking to encourage a single or standard critical illness wording but wanted to create terms that are easy for qualified medical professionals to understand.
“As Critical Illness policies were originally invented by a doctor, the late Marius Barnard, we see reengaging with medical professionals as a very natural step to protect consumers,” he added.
Dr Adam Hazel, chair of the Protection Guru independent medical panel and founder of Harley Street-based Tyburn Medical Practice said: “Medicine, diagnostics and treatment is moving at a pace never seen before and is continuing to accelerate. It cannot be in the interests of consumers for policy wordings to be based on measurements and diagnostic techniques that the medical profession has moved on from.”
Johnny Timpson OBE, the Financial Inclusion Commissioner, added: “Consumer research has shown previously that one of the reasons consumers buy Critical Illness plans is the certainty of a payout they can rely on. This only works properly for them if we keep wordings as clear as possible and in line with medical practice. It is essential the definitions are both accurate and keep patient outcomes front of mind.”
Adviser firms using the Protection Guru Pro service will be able to use a ‘Designed by Doctors’ assessment from next year when recommending insurers who meet the medical committee’s benchmarks for clarity and reflect the latest medical practice, Protection Guru said.
