Media Centre

NORWICH Union Healthcare's income protection product, SafeGuard,has been relaunched with a package of better benefits and improvedpricing.

The new-look SafeGuard offers greater flexibility, allowingpeople to increase cover in a variety of circumstances withoutfurther medical underwriting, policy charge or minimum premium.

And it features two additional deferred periods of 56 and 112weeks, making it a perfect fit with mortgage payment protectioninsurance.

This means a 30-year-old non-smoking office worker earning£30,000 pa who is accepted on standard terms, could choose amonthly tax-free* benefit of £1,500 payable up to the age of 60, ifhe needs to claim after a deferred period of 112 weeks, for amonthly premium of £15.15**.

Nick Homer of Norwich Union Healthcare said: "Income protectioncould mean the difference between keeping and losing their home foranyone who becomes unable to work through illness or injury.

"The new deferred periods available on SafeGuard mean thatanyone unable to work for longer periods of time can feel reassuredthat income protection benefits will take over at the end of theirmortgage payment protection claim period.

"And as well as significantly improving the SafeGuard benefitspackage, we have taken the opportunity to improve our new businesspricing so that we remain highly competitive."

As well as the introduction of the two longer deferred periods,the new additional benefits now available on SafeGuard include:

• Guaranteed Insurability Option: allowing greater flexibilityto increase cover due to a life event such as increase inmortgage, marriage, parenthood or significant increase in salarydue to a professional qualification, without further medicalunderwriting, policy charge or minimum premium
• Hospital benefit: £75 a night, after 7 consecutive nights,paid for up to 90 further nights in hospital during the deferredperiod
• Retirement benefit: three times monthly benefit to be paid toclaimants who have been receiving incapacity benefit for one yearleading to their termination age
• Lump sum death benefit: to be paid if the claimant dies duringthe first year of incapacity benefit payment
• Career break option: this allows a client to decrease coverand premiums to those of a houseperson. Cover can be increasedagain during the next 5 years without further underwriting afterthe client has spent three consecutive months back inemployment
• Personal Capability Assessment: to assess incapacity forhousepersons, unemployed and part-time workers and people inhigh-risk occupations, replacing the previous "any occupation"definition
• Increase maximum benefit for housepersons: maximum is now£12,000 pa

Nick Homer said: "Our latest research shows that over two thirdsof IFAs have income protection, but only 11% of the total workingpopulation have this kind of cover.

"We hope these improvements will help advisers to help theirclients value income protection as much as they clearly do."

* Under current UK tax rules 04/200

** His initial monthly premium rate will be fixed for 5years, it may then be reviewed annually.

Full details are in the new policy wording, available onrequest

Media contact

Louise Zucchi, Norwich Union Press Office
Tel. 01603 684506

Notes to Editors:

• Norwich Union Healthcare was founded in 1990 as the healthcarearm of Norwich Union and now provides a range of income protectionand private medical insurance products to around 600,000customers. It is one of the largest providers of income protectionand private medical insurance in the UK.
• CGU and Norwich Union merged on 30 May 2000 to create CGNU plc- the world's 6th largest insurer, the UK's largest insurancegroup and one of the top-five life insurers in Europe withsubstantial positions in other markets around the world.

CGNU's principal business activities are long-term savings,general insurance and asset management, with worldwide premiumincome and retail investment sales of £26billion and assets undermanagement of more than £200 billion.

From October, the combined life and pensions, general insuranceand retail fund businesses in the UK will operate under the NorwichUnion brand, while the institutional business will operate underthe Morley Fund Management brand.