Legal & General has continued to speed up the application process through the increased use of tele medical interviews rather than requesting GP reports for applications that require further underwriting. Tele medical interviews enable customers to be put on risk quickly and efficiently.
Russ Whitworth, underwriting and claims director for protection, said: "We've built up real expertise in tele medical interviewing, and estimate we will have made over 50,000 calls by the end of the year. We've also in-sourced our ‘little t' tele underwriting team and tweaked our processes to get better information from the call. This means that for nine out of ten clients our underwriters are able to look at that information and make a decision straight away. We're also able to give standard rates to the majority of our clients - over 80%."
The tele underwriting team is comprised of nurses and underwriters and its objective is to gather information about disclosures made during the application process on over 50 specific conditions such as depression and hypertension, as well as anything ‘out of the ordinary'.
