Anti-debt charity findings
New research published by StepChange, the anti-debt charity, revealed that four million people have been ill with a chronic condition in the UK over the last two years1.
59% of these people were left financially worse off as a result with many left in debt and experiencing financial distress.
How can we break the link between chronic illness and financial distress?
Income protection is the obvious and immediate answer but less than 3.2 million people have income protection – equivalent to just 10% of the working population2.
At The Exeter, we want to help improve these statistics so that more working people can protect their income and don’t need to experience financial distress due to illness.
Is flexibility the answer?
One idea suggested by StepChange is for providers of financial products to include in-built flexibility into their products that recognises that customers will experience life events and helps them to manage when they do.
We agree and believe that flexibility in income protection solutions can help reach more people and in doing so reduce financial distress associated with chronic illness.
Our Pure Protection Plus is a flexible income protection solution which is:
- Affordable – if income protection is too expensive for your client there are different ways you can reduce the cost including – the choice of 2 years, 5 years and full term claim periods, as well as a wide range of waiting periods from Day 1 to 1 year.
- Adjustable – benefit levels and premiums can be adjusted if your clients’ circumstances change. Short and long term policy breaks are also available.
- Accessible – we provide occupation neutral cover for manual workers or skilled-traders and a variety of features that can offer peace of mind to your self-employed clients.
Our vision is to provide income protection solutions that protect more people and make protection more affordable, more flexible and consequently more accessible.
- Life Happens – StepChange July 2019
- ABI/ONS
