Zurich

A new report from Zurich has revealed some worrying numbers on the extent of the income protection gap in both the UK and around the world. Gary Shaughnessy takes a closer look at some of the findings

Zurich achieved a 97% pay-out rate overall on critical illness, income protection and life insurance policies over the first six months of 2017 - paying out £121.6m to almost 2,000 customers.

Zurich has provided over 700,000 annual protection statements to customers since 2007.

Life and general insurance arms combined

Zurich has reported a 20% increase in applications for critical illness policies during the first 9 months of 2016, with over 30,000 new policies sold during this period.

Scottish Widows has introduced electronic General Practitioner (GP) reports into its protection policy underwriting process to make it simpler and quicker to obtain customers' medical information from their GP practice.

There is 'high untapped demand' for income protection cover, according to research from Zurich exclusively shared with COVER.

Zurich UK Life has reported a 15% increase in its operating profit compared to the same time last year, according to its half year results for 2016.

Only one in five 5 UK respondents to a global survey have income protection cover in the event of becoming too ill or disabled to work, according to research from Zurich.

CIExpert has revealed that Zurich has refreshed its critical illness plans- adding three 100% conditions twenty additional payment conditions.