L&G increases medical underwriting limits

Legal & General has raised its medical evidence limits for life and critical illness (CI) cover.

The provider said it hoped 6000 more applications every year would be able to progress without further medical evidence.

It added that this would mean more underwriting decisions would be made at the point of sale, ensuring that customers could be on risk quicker.

Limits for the first piece of automatic evidence for life applications for ages 18 at next birthday to 65 have all been raised.

For life cover up to age 35 the automatic medical evidence limit has increased to £750,001 from £600,001 while for critical illness up to age 30 this has been raised to £450,001 from £400,001.

It has also reduced the number of blood tests and microscopic urinalyses.

And the limits for Exercise electrocardiograms (ExECG) have also been reviewed and will not be required for life contracts until the sum assured exceeds at least £1m for older lives.

L&G has also raised these limits for CI with ages 51 to 60 not requiring ExECGs until the sum assured is £600,001 or greater and for ages 61 and over the limit is now £500,001 (previously £450,001 respectively).

Overall, the new age bands for evidence applications are:

CI - up to 30, 31 to 35 and 36 to 40,
Life- 65 to 70 and over 70 to 74 and 75 and over.

Russell Whitworth, underwriting and claims director at Legal & General Protection, said: "I am pleased that we have been able to make these changes.

"They allow us to further reduce the processing time for applications. We anticipate that around 6000 extra cases a year will go through without the need for additional underwriting.

"This supports initiatives we made earlier this year to simplify the application in our determination to make it much easier and quicker for customers to obtain the protection they need," he added.