Five facts you might not know about Vitality IP
To move with the way people live and work today, Vitality’s income protection plan has been designed to provide clients more flexible and comprehensive cover.
In recent years, Vitality has unveiled a number of enhancements to its Income Protection (IP) Plan, most recently as part of Launch 2025.
With the need for income protection higher than ever alongside improving sales for IP, here are five things that you might not know about Vitality’s plan.
1. Clients can guarantee 100% of their monthly benefit
With the increasing prevalence of people changing jobs and even career multiple times, many people will experience changing and fluctuating earnings during their working life. This brings with it the risk of over-insurance if their income ever drops.
The ultimate solution can be to future-proof the client’s IP plan and lock-in their full monthly benefit upfront, by providing financial evidence at the time of applying.
Vitality’s earnings verification option allows clients to provide earnings evidence – such as payslips or tax return - within six months of their plan going live and to lock-in 100% of their monthly benefit, up to a maximum of £8,000 per month.
Upfront earnings verification gives both advisers and their clients peace of mind that their IP monthly benefit is guaranteed in the event of a claim. This way, their plan is protected against any drop in earnings that may arise if their circumstances change.
Like most insurers, Vitality’s IP also includes an automatic minimum benefit guarantee, providing a minimum of £1500 (or the lesser insured-for benefit) if the client’s earnings have dropped at the point of claim. This is increased to £3,000 for doctors and surgeons.
2. Expanded GIOs offer greater flexibility to make plan changes
Guaranteed insurability options (GIOs) can be an effective way of making changes to a policy, without the client having to undergo new medical underwriting, which could be problematic if their health has changed since taking out the plan.
Vitality’s Income Protection Plan GIO options go further than most and allow clients to not only increase their monthly benefit, but also reduce their defer period or increase the term of their plan.
Alongside the traditional GIOs – such as getting married or divorced, having a child or buying a property - if a client changes their job resulting in a reduction in sick pay, or any group IP they’re covered by alongside their own plan is altered, they can reduce their defer period.
For clients with a mortgage, if they increase their mortgage term, they’ll also now be able to increase their policy term.
Like an increase in benefit, these changes are generally treated as increase in risk to an insurer, so without these unique GIOs clients would have to re-apply for their cover or the changes would be subject to medical underwriting.
3. Unique income boost rewards your clients for being active even if they claim
Having the right financial safety net is absolutely vital for life’s unexpected curve balls. But it goes without saying that – if given the choice – most clients would much prefer not to need to claim at all. This is the essence of Vitality’s unique Shared Value insurance model, which rewards and incentivises healthy behaviour as part of a client’s lifestyle through the Vitality Programme.
Because we know that engaging in the Vitality Programme can reduce both the likelihood and complexity of an income protection claim, our unique Vitality Income Boost pays out up to 20% extra, over and above the core IP payout, for the first six months of a claim, based on the members pre-claim Vitality status.
This means Vitality’s income protection rewards your clients for being healthy – and importantly supports them when they’re not.
4. Enhanced Recovery Benefit offers return-to-work support powered by healthcare expertise
With record numbers of people out of work due to ill-health 1, when it comes to claiming on IP helping clients to return to work is also crucial.
This is why Vitality’s income protection includes a unique contractual enhanced Recovery Benefit that, as a market-first, provides clients with access to relevant rehabilitation support, powered by VitalityHealth’s clinical expertise, immediately from the point of claim.
This provides claimants with access to some of the same services available to our private medical insurance (PMI) members and is available for mental health, cancer, musculoskeletal and – recently added – neurological related claims. These represent the most common reason for IP claims.
The support consists of things like access to our network of physiotherapists across the UK; Talking Therapies, which includes counselling and CBT, as well as cancer treatment support, consisting of a 12-week lifestyle support programme for people undergoing cancer treatment.
5. Option to add fracture cover and Child SIC for more comprehensive advice
Taking the cover provided by income protection a step further, clients have the added flexibility of including optional fracture cover and Child Serious Illness Cover, creating a more comprehensive package of cover.
We also know that for certain clients, especially those in more physical or higher-risk jobs, accidents and injuries can be a big concern. Vitality’s Accident and Fracture Cover adopts the same severity principle of Serious Illness Cover and offers market-leading payouts of up to £10,000 for a range of fractures and an additional payout of up to £2,000 if your client is hospitalised or requires surgery.
Meanwhile, the impact that a child falling ill can have on the parents, both emotionally and financially can be catastrophic. Hence why Vitality offer Child Serious Illness Cover is a separate stand-alone benefit that can be added to a clients IP plan at any time, if they decide to start a family.
Whilst traditionally only available as a benefit alongside adult critical illness cover, Vitality is one of a tiny number of insurers to offer a children’s benefit as an optional bolt-on to adult income protection cover (without the need to purchase Serious Illness Cover).
Furthermore, as a stand-alone benefit clients have more choice over the amount of children’s cover they select, with the option to insure up to £100,000 if required.
1. Economic update: Inactivity due to illness reaches record
Related: To close the protection gap IP needs to work harder
Personal Protection from Vitality
As well as offering the highest levels of protection, we also make it easier for your client's to take an active role in maintaining their wellbeing. We help them to understand their health and reward them for healthy lifestyle choices, by keeping their premiums low and giving them access to a range of discounts and rewards.
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