Scottish Widows has updated its Protect plan to comply with the Association of British Insurers’ (ABI) minimum wording requirement.
The main changes include the switch to 100% payment for early-stage prostate cancer if treated by prostatectomy – surgical removal of the prostate.
This provided an improvement on the previous claim wording. As a result, there is a fall in the value of the early-stage prostate cancer condition.
The ABI exclusion, in respect of stage one thyroid cancer, was not adopted.
All other changes have little or no impact on the payment of claims and in most cases were clarifications.
In addition, neuroendocrine and gastrointestinal tumours definitions were revised to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols, and the exclusion for Urothelial tumours was clarified.
The exclusion for ‘myocardial injury’ was reworded to make clear that this was only where there was not a heart attack.
Finally, for dementia cases, the insurer has included a confirmation that mild cognitive impairment is excluded.
Alan Lakey, director of CIExpert, said: “The changes to cancer, heart attack and dementia are those mandated by the ABI in its latest review of the minimum standard wordings and are, or will be, adopted by the majority of insurers with many opting to go beyond the minimum standard.
“Scottish Widows Protect has maintained its position as offering one of the leading plans in the budget arena and demonstrates a sound 93% critical illness claims paid figure for 2022.
“Like most other insurers Scottish Widows has chosen not to adopt the Thyroid exclusion.
“A few years ago, there were concerns amongst reinsurers that it could give rise to unwarranted claims occurring, as in South Korea, but there now appears to be little appetite to adopt this exclusion and the resulting complexity of trying to explain the subtle reduction in coverage to both advisers and consumers.”
