Vitality Income Protection [REVIEW]

Who Are Vitality?

Vitality is a leading insurance and investment company, offering a range of Life and Health Insurance products such as Income Protection, Critical Illness cover and Life Insurance. It also provides a number of investment products.

Its core purpose is to make people healthier and help them to protect their lives. This is why along with its parent group, Discovery, it has pledged to get 100 million people 20% more active by 2025.

Vitality’s Income Protection

Policy Overview

• Rewards for healthy living. Get discounts, cashback and bonuses when you keep up with the Vitality Plus programme, which you can add on to certain policies.
• Vitality uses the Own Occupation definition of incapacity for the majority of occupations it covers.
• You can pay extra to fix 100% of your monthly benefit at the outset, so if your income falls during your policy’s term Vitality still pays your benefit in full.

Documentation

What Does Vitality’s Income Protection Cover?

Key Benefits

Vitality offers three different cover options to make it easier to pick the right cover for needs and budget. These are:

• Income Protection Cover
  Covers 60% of your gross income up to £5,000 per month and 50% of income above this, capped at £10,000 per month. It will pay out right up until the end of the plan if you become so ill you can never work again.
• Short Term Income Protection
  This option offers the same level of monthly benefit as the above Income Protection policy. However, being a Short Term Income Protection policy, it only pays out for up to 2 years in the event of a claim.
• Income Protection Cover Plus
  Cover Plus lets you cover 60% of your gross income up to £5,000 per month and 50% of income above this, capped at £16,666 per month rather than £10,000. Again, this option will pay out right up until the end of the plan if you become so ill you can never work again.

Public Sector Deferral Period

If you choose either the Income Protection or Income Protection Cover Plus policies, you can select a 12 month deferral period if you’re a public sector worker. This includes teachers, NHS staff and council workers.

Vitality then links your payout to your public sector sick pay, for example paying 50% of your benefit while you are receiving half pay and 100% of your benefit when your sick pay stops.

Automatic Waiver of Premium

Vitality automatically includes waiver of premium. This means it pays your premiums for you while you’re in a claim. This starts on the day after your selected deferred period ends.

Minimum Benefit Guarantee

Insurers base the monthly income benefit you’re entitled to on your income. If your income falls between you taking out a policy and making a claim, its likely that your benefit will therefore fall as well.

However, Vitality offers a ‘benefit guarantee’, so if your benefit is £1,500 or less, it still pays your chosen monthly benefit minus any continuing income you are receiving.

Whole Benefit Fix

If you pay extra to add this to your policy, Vitality will fix your benefit from the outset. That means, even if your income and therefore your entitlement to a benefit falls in the future, Vitality will still pay your original benefit without reducing it to account for you new lower earnings.

Special Incapacity Definition

For some higher risk occupations Vitality has a ‘special’ definition of incapacity. Here, it will pay your full benefit for 12 months based on the standard own occupation definition. However, on the 12 month anniversary of the claim, they’ll reassess your incapacity.

Depending on its severity at that point, Vitality will either continue paying the claim fully or reduce your benefit payments by 50%.

Retrospective Payments For Self-Employed

If you are self employed, choose a 1 month defer period and suffer from one of a list of conditions, Vitality backdates your benefit payments to the 1st date of incapacity.

Indexed Cover Available

Vitality offer indexed-linked Income Protection. With this option, your benefit increases annually in line with inflation measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI), capped at 10% per year.

However, it’s important to note that your premiums will also increase. The premium increases work depending on the increase in RPI and therefore your benefit. If RPI rises by:

• 0-2%, your premiums rise by RPI + 1.5%
• 2-8%, your premiums rise by RPI + 2.5%,
• More than 8%, your premiums rise by RPI + 3.5%.

Guaranteed Insurability Option

Vitality lets you increase your benefit when certain life events happen without asking additional questions about your health.

However, not all life events are covered under Vitality’s short term and standard Income Protection policies.

Life events include:

• Mortgage increase
• Marriage / civil partnership (Cover Plus only)
• Childbirth / adoption (Cover Plus only)
• Increase in salary / job change
• Every third policy anniversary (Cover Plus only).

Additional Benefits

Recovery Benefit

Vitality offers a Recovery Benefit which gives policyholders access to therapies and nursing support. It organises the services you need and pays for them directly, giving you one less thing to worry about.

Vitality pays the lower of your full Income Protection benefit or £1,000 (£2,000 for Cover Plus policies).

Discounted Apple Watch

Purchase an Apple Watch through Vitality and use it as a fitness tracker to earn rewards. By recording your activity you can earn points to help to reduce the cost of the watch. The more points you earn, the lower your repayments on the watch could be.

You must be paying a minimum premium of £45 per month and pay a small upfront deposit to access this benefit. Your regular monthly repayments will be over 36 months on a 0% APR finance agreement.

Permanent Disability Increase (Cover Plus Only)

With a comprehensive policy you will have access to a Permanent Disability Increase. If you become permanently disabled and cannot perform at least 3 activities of daily living, your benefit will increase by 10%.

However, you cannot receive more than £200,000 per year in combined benefit and Permanent Disability Increase.

Hospitalisation benefit (Cover Plus Only)

If you have to spend time in hospital during your deferred period, Vitality pays £100 per night after the 7 consecutive nights for a maximum of 90 nights.

Vitality’s unique Vitality Plus Programme rewards policyholders for being active by offering a range of discounts and benefits, such as money off gym memberships, cashback on the high street and when shopping online.

Sophie Wilson
Independent Protection Expert at Drewberry

Key Comparison Points

Public Sector Defer Period

Unlike other providers which only offer a Sick Pay Guarantee or similar to NHS staff such as doctors and surgeons, Vitality extends this benefit to other public sector workers such as teachers and council workers.

Whole Benefit Fix

Vitality are the only insurer on the market to offer the option to fix your whole benefit amount. This option offers you peace of mind knowing that, should your circumstances change and your income fall, Vitality will still pay your original benefit in full.

Vitality Plus Programme

The most unique aspect of Vitality’s Income Protection is its Vitality Plus Programme. This gives access to cheaper premiums, cashback and other rewards. However, to access these benefits policyholders must take an active approach to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The Vitality Plus Programme:

• Can be added to any core protection product for an additional £5 charge
• Involves earning Vitality points through exercise, healthy living and annual reviews
• Offers discounts on gym memberships, fitness gadgets, bikes, running gear, holidays, as well as free weekly cinema ticket and coffee
• Lets you use points to unlock better rewards, earn cashback and lower your premiums
• Means your premiums won’t increase just because you don’t engage with the programme.

The Vitality Life Programmes

These programmes let you reap all kinds of rewards from your policy, including freebies, discounts, cashback and annually reducing premiums.

There are different options to choose from which offer slightly different benefits. These include Vitality’s Optimiser and Vitality Wellness Optimiser plan.

If you select either of these, they offer an initial upfront premium discount. If you didn’t want one of the Optimiser plans, you can simply add Vitality Plus to any core product and take advantage of the rewards linked to that specific plan.

It is important to know that with the Optimiser policies, premiums could go up as well as down. If you don’t engage with the Healthy Living programme and maintain a healthy lifestyle, your premiums may increase.

Vitality Optimiser

• Vitality Plus is included as standard at a price of £3.80 (you cannot remove Vitality Plus from the policy)
• Get an upfront discount on your ‘optimised’ insurance policy and lower premiums
• Earn Vitality points through exercise, healthy living and annual reviews to spend on rewards
• Have your premiums reduced annually if you collect enough points to reach ‘platinum’ Vitality status
• Premiums increase if you don’t engage with the programme
• You can only access some discounts by collecting a certain number of points regularly.

Vitality Wellness Optimiser

• Vitality Plus is included as standard at a price of £3.80 (you cannot remove Vitality Plus from the policy)
• Get a significant upfront discount on your ‘optimised’ insurance policy and lower premiums
• Earn Vitality points through exercise and healthy living to unlock rewards and reduce premiums.
• Earn Wellness points by maintaining a healthy BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose level to unlock rewards and reduce premiums
• Premiums will increase if you don’t engage with the programme
• You can only access some discounts by collecting a certain number of points regularly.

Compare Income Protection Quotes & Get Expert Advice

As you can see, when looking to compare Income Protection Insurance there are lots of points to consider. With so many factors and a lot of different terminology at play, it can be tricky to do an accurate like-for-like comparison between providers.

Why Speak to Us?

We started Drewberry™ because we were tired of being treated like a number.

We all deserve a first class service when it comes to issues as important as protecting our health and our finances. Below are just a few reasons why it makes sense to talk to us.

• There is no fee for our service
• We are an independent insurance broker who work with all the leading UK insurers
• You’ll speak to a dedicated expert from start to finish
• We are very proud of the 3037 and growing independent client reviews rating us at 4.92 / 5
• Claims support when you need it most.
• We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. You can find us on the financial services register here 🧐
• Claims support when you need it most.

For help and fee-free advice on Income Protection, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Pop us a call on 02084327333 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.