I today attended a webinar hosted by Irish Life. The main crucial points I have outlined below and hope that they offer you some reassurance at this time:
New Business:
Irish Life remain open for new business and are doing whatever they can to get people on cover. They gave an example of a 70 year old front line worker with a pre-existing respiratory disease. She was accepted for the cover with a loading on the premium given her credentials i.e. age, smoker status, amount of cover, term required along with the medical information.
For policies such as mortgage protection, term insurance they are not restricting cover for front line workers, however if front line workers require income protection or bill cover restrictions may apply as the occupation is (and always has been) a factor for this type of cover.
To date their loading on premiums has been 1% overall due specifically to Covid 19
Obtaining medical evidence prior to Covid 19 was taking approx. 2-3 weeks on average. Now they are receiving medical evidence in the same time period if not sooner.
Income Protection/Bill Cover:
In order to obtain this cover you need to be employed or self employed. However in the current climate a lot of people have been temporarily laid off and therefore ‘unemployed’. Unfortunately you cannot obtain income protection or bill cover whilst unemployed. However if you are a teacher, hairdresser, beauty salon worker, cafe worker etc (this is no exhaustive list) and there is reasonable expectation that you will return to work in the short term you may be in a position to obtain this cover now.
Claims:
Life Cover:
There are no Covid 19 or pandemic exclusions under any of the plans. If an existing customer dies from complications as a result of Covid-19, they are covered under the normal terms and conditions of a life cover plan.
To date Irish Life have issued one claim where the reason stated on the death cert was ‘Covid 19’. They are accepting interim death certs to process claims and issuing policy proceeds within their normal turn around times.
Specified Illness Cover:
Covid-19 is not a Specified Illness under the terms and conditions of a specified illness policy
Income Protection/Bill Cover:
If someone is medically unable to work as a result of Covid-19 and meets the definition of disability after the normal deferred period, a claim can be made, however given most deferred periods are between 8 & 13 weeks, claims may be infrequent for Covid-19. Being in isolation is not sufficient to trigger a claim as you are still medically able to work not physically unable to work.
Hospital Cash Cover:
Irish Life have paid 1 claim to date for this benefit in respect of Covid-19 in the amount of €1,800.
Very often people are unaware of policies they hold, the benefits within these policies and in a high percentage of cases, have no benefits at all! It is always advisable to review your policies regularly to ensure you and your loved ones are financially secure in the event of accident, sickness, disability and death. One important point to stress before anyone cancels a policy they hold is once the policy is cancelled all benefits will cease and you may be unable to obtain cover again.
Please contact me if you have any queries with regard to the above.
Lorraine
29/4/2020
Email: lorraine@jigsawfinance.ie
Tel. 01-2839360 or 087 2608988
