Dave Thompson, Senior claims technical manager, Scottish Widows
Earlier this year, at the launch of the Scottish Widows ‘Living with and beyond cancer in 2045' report, the data was striking. But what stayed with me was simpler: where claims can get delayed, and why.
More people are living with cancer and living with it for longer. That's down to advances in treatments and earlier diagnoses. But it also means more people will rely on the claims process at points of real vulnerability. And too often, the delay is not the decision. It's the evidence.
When medical evidence slows down, the whole claim slows down too. If we do not improve how evidence is requested, tracked, and communicated, delays risk becoming the norm.1
Five-year prevalence, the group most likely to be in active treatment or adjusting to changes in work and income, is projected to rise by 50% over the next two decades. By 2045, over two million people are expected to be living with a cancer diagnosed in the previous five years.1
So, the question for all of us in financial services and healthcare is a practical one.
Are the systems around claims, medical evidence, and support fit for the future?
Advisers see the strain points in claims up close. And when frustration shows up, it is rarely about whether insurers pay. It is about the waiting, and processes that feel too complex when someone has the least headspace to cope.
This is where the bottleneck becomes more than an operational issue. It becomes a trust issue. And when trust wobbles, it rarely wobbles towards the insurer. It wobbles towards the adviser relationship, because that is the human connection clients have.
If a claim cannot move forward without medical evidence, and that evidence takes weeks or months to arrive, the advice relationship can end up carrying the emotional weight of the delay. Advisers become the person the client calls, even when the adviser cannot unblock the system.
The reality is that medical evidence sits at the centre of both underwriting and claims. When it flows smoothly, the experience can feel straightforward. When it doesn't, everything slows down.
We are seeing growing concerns around GP report delays, driven by pressures on primary care and inconsistent turnaround times between practices. Advisers often report delays can run into months in some cases.
And it matters most at the point that should be simplest: paying valid claims quickly.
The challenge is not about blame. It is about building better connections between systems that were never designed to work seamlessly together.
So, what can we control?
We can control how we request evidence, how proportionate we make those requests, how we communicate while we wait and how we support people during that waiting period, so the process does not add avoidable harm.
One of the most encouraging developments in recent years is that advisers and distributors have been clear about what good looks like and have pushed the market to raise standards.
The Protection Distributors Group (PDG) Claims Charter is a practical example of where the market has aligned on expectations. It sets out the basics: a dedicated claims team, named points of contact, regular updates, and timeframes for assessing claims forms and medical evidence. It also highlights the need to avoid unnecessary paperwork where digital alternatives exist.2
If we accept the direction of travel, rising prevalence, and rising survivorship, then the real question is practical: what changes would reduce the evidence bottleneck at scale?
Four areas where we can make progress together.
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- Ask only for what we truly need and ask it clearly. Not every case needs the same depth of evidence, and inconsistency adds delay. We should be working towards clearer norms on what evidence is genuinely required for different claim types and circumstances, and ensure requests are specific and easy to fulfil.
- Reduce duplication. People should not feel like they are answering the same questions repeatedly across the process.
- Update people like it matters, because it does. When evidence is delayed, silence creates anxiety and leaves advisers managing the gap.
- Use partnerships to support people while evidence is gathered. Connect claimants quickly to practical and emotional support, including through charity partnerships and specialist services.
If prevalence rises the way the research suggests, evidence delays will touch more families, more often.
So, this is the practical challenge in front of us: make evidence simpler to request, faster to gather, and clearer to track. Progress will not come from one organisation acting alone. It will come from shared standards, better connections between systems, and a relentless focus on reducing avoidable friction for advisers and the people they support.
Sources:
1 Scottish Widows Cancer prevalence report outputs, 2026
2 Protection Distributors Group (PDG) Claims Charter, 2026
