Thank you very much, Paul. Good evening everybody, and many thanks for joining us this evening. As Paul said, brief presentation, the impact of a long term illness or accident, and obviously the importance of, of this presentation really is around the impact on individual circumstances, finances and lifestyle.

The presentation shouldn't last much more than 20 minutes. And really all I wanted to do this evening was give you a high level view of something we call income protection, not from an advertising perspective, not from a sales perspective, but hopefully from a food for thought perspective. It's my aim really that if you leave this, this presentation at the end with, Income protection is something that you should seriously consider within your financial package, then I've done my job correctly.

And if you then investigate, take your cover elsewhere, that's fine. If you take your cover with PG Mutual even better, but hopefully I can give you a little bit of an insight into the product and how it can help people if they do suffer a long term illness or or injury that stops them working. Patronising bit, we've all seen that, failure to plan planning to fail.

We've all seen, and heard people, within presentations that talk about business contingency and. Protection, etc. And I unfortunately, I'm joining that crew in terms of whether we like it or not, there are certain things that we need to consider within our financial lifestyles that really do need consideration.

We don't go to work for fun, we don't create a business. For fun. Why do we do the things that we do?

We do it because we want a lifestyle, we want to look after ourselves. We look after, look after our, our family and the people that we love. So it's important within anybody's business, within anybody's individual circumstances, that we do potentially think about what could be around the corner.

So what could possibly go wrong? I'm not going to talk you through this slide, it's, it's just a few, statistics there. I think the one comment that I will point out is the one top left, that over our lifetimes we do, and hopefully it's not with ourselves and hopefully it's not with our next, next of kin and loved ones, but we do unfortunately, as we go through life, often find that we know someone who has suffered a long-term illness or an injury.

And it's at that point in a lot of people's lives that suddenly income protection jumps to the forefront, and potentially too late, within that person's life. One of the other interesting statistics that I often quote as well is a survey that Macmillan Cancer did a few years ago with the people that that were using their services, i.e.

People suffering from cancer. They asked those people what their biggest concern was within their life at that point. I would have assumed as a layperson, that if somebody is suffering from a serious illness, that a major concern in life would be recovery and making sure that they get on the mend and get better.

A survey from Macmillan Cancer actually found that at that point in people's lives, their biggest concern was their finances. And to a certain degree, that's a double hit. You're not well, you want to concentrate on recovery, and yet your mind's elsewhere.

Your mind is thinking, how am I going to look after myself? Am I going to look after my loved ones. So again, that's what I title as my grim reaper slide.

Like it or not, people do fall ill, people do have accidents. And yet this is probably, . One of the most important lines in the entire presentation and factually correct.

I, I speak to people every day with pet insurance, I see them at at events within the veterinary world. I often talk to to people about, well how much does it cost to insure your cat, your dog, and I often run quotes for people that are actually, insuring their income would be cheaper than. The pet insurance that they already have in place.

We insure our cars, we have to. But there are other things in life we insure such as phones, our homes, our holidays, and obviously life insurance is a very common protection product in the UK. However, common sense dictates, what is it within our lifestyle?

That pays for those insurances and beyond those insurances, pays for all the other things that we want to do in our lives, whether it be holidays or you know, fast cars, wherever you prefer to spend your money. So we often insure other things, but we don't often insure ourselves and our income. In terms of statistics within the insurance sector, it's as little as 8 to 10% of the UK workforce, where they're self-employed or employed, that actually take out some form of income protection on their, on their, on their, on their jobs, on their, on their roles.

So it's a very, very undersold product. It's one that which magazine, if you go on their website on our income protection section, actually states that income protection is the one insurance product that most people within the UK should consider. The caveats that very few do.

And if I speak to people 1 to 1, when I speak to people individually, most people recognise that income protection actually is a common sense financial product that they should consider. And yet we find ourselves as a nation very, very underinsured in this area. A pair of few new shoes.

I've shown you my Grim Reaper slide, and I don't want to sit here quoting statistics about diseases and accidents, etc. Things can go wrong, not for everybody, thankfully. But let me give you a real life example.

I know a gentleman, not sitting far from me. That a couple of years ago, walked far too far in a brand new pair of shoes. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that person spent the next 3 weeks of his, of his life wearing flip flops, because he did so much damage to the back of his heels.

That he found it extremely uncomfortable to wear shoes for such a long period. Thankfully, that person, has a job that doesn't require him to be wandering around mobile. He was still able to do his job.

But if he, if, if I was in a different role, but like that slip, if I was in a different role, something as innocuous as overdoing a a walk in a brand new pair of shoes could potentially if I'd be ringing my employer, or if I was self-employed, ringing clients and saying actually I'm sorry. I can't make that commitment, because I can barely walk. So we talk about real life scenarios, and that's what, that's what this, this presentation's about really.

It's, it's, I don't want to go straight for the doom and gloom. What if you never work again? Thankfully, the vast majority of people in the UK don't contract issue illnesses and and and have accidents that stop them working for the rest of their lives, but people do have prolonged periods of of illness, of accident, where they can't work for a reasonable length of time.

It is fairly common. And the last thing you want. If you're unable to work, if you're at home feeling sorry for yourself, not well, is you, you, you, you want to make sure that things like this, final demands, etc.

That the bills are paid, you don't want your mind on other areas that could potentially hold you back from recovery. So what's the issue? There's little government support.

We are a self-help society, whether we like it or not. The . In terms of employers and and people who are employed, it's more and more common for me to speak to people these days who get very little in terms of statutory sorry .

Sick pay beyond statutory from their employers. So very often it's nothing, occasionally it's a week, two weeks, if you're beyond that, then you're in a reasonably good position these days. If your employer's not paying you beyond statutory sick pay, which for reference is a little over 95 pounds per week, not enough if you look at the figure at the bottom for most households.

It has gone up recently. If you're self-employed, your option is employment support allowance, which interestingly enough, this year, the government decided not to increase by the usual pennies or pounds on an annual basis. Again, significantly under 100 pounds a week.

So if you're employed and there's very little help from your from your employer, if you're self-employed, obviously you're captain of your own destiny, you are your own employer. You may, you've paid, you've paid your tax, your national insurance. I do apologise.

I apologise for that. You may think I've paid my tax, I've paid my national insurance. I'll be OK.

The government will look after me if I'm unable to work. Afraid if you dig into the statistics, if you dig into the facts, you will find, that we are a self-help society in this area, and if you don't put something in place, you can't rely on the government, you can't rely on employers. And yet you're still going to have commitments to pay.

We are a nation these days of, two income households. Very often these days, both partners work, we rely on both salaries. So again, you may have commitments to pay, it may be that you have a partner with a salary coming in, but obviously, will that cover all your day to day expenses?

Again, we're family people in the UK, not everybody has children, but we have partners, a lot of us have children. You've got to think about other people as well. The issue isn't necessarily, I'm not earning, am I going to pay the bills, it's potentially I'm not earning, how am I going to pay the bills?

How is this going to affect me and the people that I love? And your main emphasis should be recovery. As I've said a few times, if you're at home, if you're not well, really, where your mind should be is getting better, is recovering.

It shouldn't be a worrying, as that Mark Milan Cancer research found, it should not be worrying about the next email that drops through into your inbox or the next letter that drops through to the door. And you've worked very hard to get where you are today. You've built your career, you've trained, you've studied, you've spent years, getting to the point of your professional career, looking after your clients, looking after your customers, and potentially some something as, as, as minor as somebody running into the back of you on, on a dual carriageway one day could potentially put all that in jeopardy through no fault of your own.

Somebody if you use that example, if somebody were to run into the back of you and you spend 6 months, unable to work. How would that affect the the career that you built up, how would that affect the business that you built up? And if we talk about impacts on business, again I'm not trying to do a one size fits all, but if we think about employed and the self-employed.

If you do run a business, and obviously these pains can be individual to any business that you run, then you've got a few things to consider. If you haven't got something like this in place. If you take yourself out of the business for a six month period, for example, the business is likely to lose money.

It's not likely to run as well as it would run with you in the business. Cost of cover, what I mean by that, and it links very much with loss of customers in the next line. It's highly unlikely you can't run your business for 6 months that you're gonna ring your customers up and say, OK, I'm very sorry, I'm gonna be off radar for 6 months.

Why don't you try the guys in the next town over, they'll look after you. That would be business suicide, wouldn't it? So what you're more likely to do, if you run your own business is you're long than likely to bring in a lo.

You're more likely to bring in somebody else. And that potentially is, is, is double jeopardy then, isn't it? Your business isn't generating the income that you it would if you're in the business, and then you're actually paying somebody to also work within your business for you.

So suddenly it's pay pay, and it puts you in a worse position. Lots of customers, as I say, people are very loyal, I use the local vets myself, you you you use the people that you trust, that you look after, if suddenly I've got a contact through saying can't come for the next few months, obviously I'd have to look around and potentially I gain trust then with another organisation. And at the bottom, I've mentioned personal commitments in terms of mortgages, rent, etc.

But obviously if you run a business as well, that business has commitments. And again, it would be vital to make sure that revenue is available to make sure that you meet those commitments. So it could have several impacts on businesses.

What I want to go through today is what I see is the five potential solutions for anybody that might think, actually, maybe this is something of interest to me, maybe this is something that I should consider. So if I run you through the very, you know, the 5 definite solutions as I see them to this problem. The first one's obvious, and unfortunately, this is what 90% of the UK working population chooses.

It chooses to ignore this as if it's a problem that doesn't exist. A lot of people look at income protection. At some point in their working and and professional lives, some people revisit the the issue, and we've seen them at PG Mutual every year.

I think our record is 6 years that some individuals have visited us every year and had conversations. Before they've finally decided to put something in place, so it's it's, it's not uncommon, I'm afraid for people to look at income protection and decide actually what more important things to do and for life to move on. This is one that I've been working on for many years now, unsuccessfully.

Another solution is to marry into money. If you manage to find yourself a millionaire partner, then, good luck to you, and I'll be perfectly honest. If you find yourself a millionaire partner, you certainly don't need income protection, you're well taken care of.

Very similar. Another one I've worked on, you could win the lottery. Who cares about your income if you manage to win the Euro Mills on a Friday night.

Again, you're not looking at protection. And again, what you could do, and I think a lot of people fall into this category as well, this is the category really where a lot of people would say actually it won't happen to me, it won't happen to me, never had a day off work in my life. I genuinely hope.

For anybody's sake, that, you know, saying that you've not had a day off, in your life doesn't tempt fate and mean that round the next corner is a 6 month absence from work, but unfortunately, again, it's, it's something that we all do. I'm sure there are other insurances that I could look at within my life, where potentially I'm metaphorically crossing my fingers and hoping actually it won't happen to me. The only other solution, well, that's what we're just talking about on high level this evening.

The definite solution to make sure that if you do have an accident or an illness that stops you from working, is to put some cover in place yourself to protect your income, swap those words around with income protection. On a high level, what is income protection? Well, income protection, as you can see on the screen, very straightforward product, it provides an income in the event that you do suffer an accident or an illness that cause you to be absent from your occupation.

And most income protection products will pay you until you either get better or return to work. A caveat on that is there is a, a proliferation at the moment in the market of what I call short-term income protection products, very common on some of the aggregator sites, such as MoneySupermarket, Compare the Market, etc. Where again you have to be careful, check the T's and Cs.

Some of these products will only pay you for a fixed period. So if you're actually off work beyond. That period, if you're still not recovered then obviously at that point the premium the the benefits stops being paid to you.

But the vast majority of products in the market will pay you until you return to work or until you recover or in effect retire. So in other words, income protection, dead straightforward, provides you an income. I know you, otherwise you're left with virtually nothing.

Statutory sick pay, employment support allowance mentioned earlier. Let's remove some myths as well. Income protection is not payment protection insurance, it has nothing to do with the, the financial scandal of, of recent years that banks are paying quite rightly for.

Income protection across the market, all insurers, not just PG Mutual, what you will find if you double check, if you do some research, is that it's a fairly straightforward product and it does what it says. Fairly simple claims procedures, PG is online, copy of the Fitnote, bank details so we can start paying a claim. And excellent claim claims paid rates across the industry.

Over 90% of income protection claims by insurers are paid. To their policyholders. Delighted to confirm that PG Mutual, in the last 3 years we've paid 97.5% of our claims.

So again, the products, whether it be with ourselves or whether it be with other insurers, does what it says it should do. It provides you with that income when you need it the most, i, when you're unable to work. So how does it work in theory, and again this, this is income protection, it's not specific to PG Mutual, you tailor the cover.

You look around on the market, wherever that may be, and you go for a policy that fits your, your personal needs, whether that be individual or whether that be business. Obviously you can look at the amount of cover, and a word of caution here, too many people tend to go for needs, so it wants rather than needs. We speak to these people every day at PG Mutual people.

Put in our quick quote system, well, 3000 pounds, you speak to these people, that's what they're earning. Quite factually, when you discuss people's needs with them, i.e., if you're off ill, unable to work, you're not commuting to work, you're not disappearing on holiday, you're not in the pub every Friday night.

What you actually need to keep your head of water financially probably isn't what you're earning, probably isn't anywhere near that. It's fine. If you want to go for extra cover, what we often say to people is, look, your starting point potentially is keeping your head above water financially, you don't just go straight for overinsurance.

Income protection is no different than any other product. The more cover you go for, the more it will cost. So be sensible when you're looking at cover, and work out what you need, rather than what you want as your starting point.

When should the cover start? I don't mean in terms of the policy become, become live. Most income protection products offer what's something called a deferred period option.

The deferred period, very simply put, is the length, the length of time you are unable to work before the benefit starts to be paid for you. So if I use an example of 2 weeks deferred period. Somebody has a 2 week deferred period in their policy, they have 6 weeks off work because they can't work through illness.

For the 1st 2 weeks, there is no claim, and they can start the claim, obviously at that point, but for the 1st 2 weeks, no payment. As soon as they cross that 14 day line, the insurer will then start past that claim as, as, ready to be paid and will start to, to pay the benefit. Up until the end of the claim, as I mentioned, 6 weeks.

Again, certain, certain businesses, most income protection is underwritten, I've got exclusions and underwriting in two lines there, . It is unfortunate to say, if you pardon the phrase, because we are talking about health, but a very simple metaphor is you cannot insure a car. Once you've crashed it, too many people do think about income protection too late.

They tend to think about it when they've suffered an issue, a chronic issue or a serious issue. Most income protection providers do ask about your health in some way or other. And unfortunately, occasionally we have to go back to people and say, I'm sorry, we can't cover that, that medical issue.

I'm pleased to say with PG Mutual, if there is something we can't cover, we put that in writing to someone before they start a policy. Not two years down the line when potentially they want to put a claim in. If we can't cover something from somebody's illness, and again we're not not alone on this, other insurers would operate in the same way.

Then you would get that in writing. You can't cover that leg, we will tell you we can't cover that leg. We will not wait for a claim to come in and and drop that on you at that point.

I mentioned earlier short-term products that proliferate the market at the moment, so again, if you're doing your due diligence, if long term is what you're looking for, make sure you're with a provider that will provide long term cover, and not somebody that will say, OK, 12 months cover, 2 years cover, then you're on your own. Again, within the market, you've got different options index link cover, level benefit cover, cover that actually, the, the, the cheapest provision is, is what's known as reducing cover, where they, very often it's people that approach income protection later in life, and it's an option to keep the premiums lower, where it may be that you get full cover for a certain period, cover stays with you, but does drop, the longer you're off hill. So again, look at the options there, and the last point I put up there, flexibility.

What I mean by flexibility is life's a journey, financial life is just as much a journey. You take a policy out today, I would guarantee that 5 years down the line, you don't want exactly the same permutations for that policy at that point. PG neutral, other insurers, we allow people to change product.

We allow people to, in effect, say, OK, maybe I'm looking at more cover now, maybe I need the the the deferred period changing. We allow people to change their product to make sure it fits their, their, their needs now and in the future. Co-administration fees, we would potentially ask about somebody's health if somebody decides to increase cover down the line, but that flexibility is in there because the product needs to be tailored for you now, and it needs to be tailored for you in the future as well.

So how do you choose a provider, because as I've said, PG Mutual, we're not the only provider of income protection in the UK, and it's very much down to your choice. What I would recommend is you, you do a small element of due diligence. The first point I put up there is who is the insurer?

If we, again, we use PG as an example, we are the insurer, . We do not reinsure, we don't have another organisation at the bottom of our small print who dictate how we pay claims, etc. OPG mutual members are members of the society, and the society covers them from cradle to grave.

There are other insurers, there are other brokers out there, sometimes you have to be careful that it might be a product that's sold through a broker, and that actually you find out that it's a broker product, but there's an insurer in the background, and there might even be a reinsurer behind the insurer. Dictating how potentially claims are paid and underwriting's done. So if you're comfortable with that, that's absolutely fine, but always make sure you double check who the actual company will be, but when you need it most, i.e., payment will be paying you.

Cost versus benefit, I've mentioned, there is a proliferation of short-term products out there, it can be fairly cost effective. If premium is, is key to you, then there are options that can be reasonably inexpensive. Just make sure you're comfortable with what you get for that premium.

Income protection, again, it's like a lot of products out there in the market, . You tend to get what you value for money. If it's cheap as chips, there might be a reason why it's cheap.

The benefit might not be particularly good, it may not last long. So I always make sure that you don't just go, oh, that's the cheapest, that's the one I'll have, make sure you're compare in apples and apples, for want of a better phrase. Service levels are important, they link very well with claims history on the, on the next line down.

You want to make sure that at the point you need this product, i.e. When you need to claim on it.

That you're not going to be passed from green team to orange team, that you're going to deal with human beings who will deal with you on on an appropriate level. PG Mutual, for example, we don't have green Team, red team, you ring up PG mutual offices, you will be spoken to by an individual, who will make sure that that you are passed to the appropriate individual at the earliest opportunity. In fact, with regards to a lot of our long-term claimants, very often they're on first name terms with, with our office staff.

I mentioned claims history, again, if you're going to look around the market, make sure it's an organisation that that deliver. As I've said, income protection in general, 90% plus claims within within the industry. PG mutual sitting at 97.5%, so just make sure that the organisation that you decide to to trust will actually deliver the, you know, deliver the benefit when you need it.

I've mentioned flexibility as well, make sure it's a product. And again, it's just my opinion, but I would want a product that I can make sure fits me today and potentially in the future. And the last slide there about added value is you will find now more and more, quite rightly, organisations that you don't just provide income protection, but there are other benefits that are tied to the product.

PG Mutual for example. We provide our members with a number of additional benefits, for no extra cost, it's not tick here if you want this or that. We provide our members, for instance, if I'll flip forward to the next slide, if you look at, pardon me, if you look at the, the lovely yellow box, pays out when you need it and when you don't, we are not for profit.

But what we actually do is we give our members back our profit on an annual basis, every member of PG Mutual receives a statement from us that confirms what their profit share is for the last year, confirms their accumulated balance of profit share, and also confirms the amount of interest that we've paid on their accumulated profit share as well. So PG mutual members, whether they claim or not. They receive profit share from the society on an annual basis, tends to give our members comfort that what we're not doing is setting premiums to make our shareholders happy, because they are in effect, our shareholders.

In addition to that, when we talk about added value, we also. Provide our members with a guarantee that should one of our members die, whilst they have income protection with us, we make sure that that profit share is a minimum of 10,000 pounds to pay to their estate, and we'd also pay them 6 months' worth of their benefit. So if somebody insures themselves for 2000 pounds a month, that's an additional 12,000 pounds that they would receive that their loved ones would receive.

We also provide our members access to a GP 24/7 service free of charge. So any, any time of day, 365 days a year from anywhere in the world, if one of our members falls ill or one of their loved ones falls ill, they can speak to or even face call a registered UK GP. There is no recording of credit card or debit card details because there is no charge at all to our number, even if the call goes over the usual 1520 minutes.

It would be dealt with. So these are the things that that organisations can, can add value to a pure income protection policy, because in addition, we also provide our members access to our member benefit scheme, which is a whole proliferation of of everyday products and services that our members can save money on. So do your due diligence, check your, check your provider.

The final little bit about PG Mutual, is up on the screen. We've been, we were established back in 1928, so we've got over 90 years' worth of experience on pure income protection. I've mentioned our claims record several times.

I've rounded it up to 7097.5%. And I will leave you with one, I hope, from of of, of, of comfort as well in terms of due diligence, as you can expect, whilst we're a mutual organisation and we are owned by our members, we're still fully regulated and supervised by the regulators.

I hope I've given you a high level view in terms of income protection, and as I said at the beginning, my aim isn't to necessarily drive everybody to PG Mutual. It's just really to give that food for thought about whether or not this is something that potentially you should look at within your, your professional life. That you'd be pleased to hear is the last slide.

If you would like a little bit more information on PG mutual, our website's there. Also, we do have, if you, a very, very simple and straightforward quick quote page, our website, literally is, a 32nd quote, you don't need to provide us, all your life information, very basic information, you can get a quote that you can play with. On our quote box, it asks for a discount code.

If you put webinar vets, no gap, webinar vet in that discount code box, it will provide a 15% discount off our premiums for 2 years. So thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much, Paul.

Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Stephen. There's a lot of really good information to digest and like you say, it's definitely food for thought.

My own partner was recently involved in a, a car crash, and we didn't have, income protection in place, and it's been, a big sort of learning curve, and there's been a lot going on where we thought, Oh, God, I wish we did have something in place, and then looking up statutory sick pay. And then we found out that with statutory, there's a 3 day waiting period that you have to, adhere to as well. So it's, it's all been a bit, painful, but we got some excellent advice actually from Stephen and the the PG mutual team, so I'd like to say thank you for that.

No thank you. So we do have a few questions coming in. If you have any questions for Stephen, please do submit them into the Q and A box, and we'll try to get through as many as we can.

Some very interesting questions actually, . Couple of people asking if you are if you are covered with income protection, can you still claim statutory sick pay? Yes, you can.

Statutory sick pay is an obligation by your employer, sorry, on your employer, should I say, by the government, . Very often people ask that question the other way around. If you're receiving statutory sick pay, does it affect income protection?

And the answer again is no, it doesn't. So, whether you've got income protection in place or not, your employer owes you statutory sick pay for the 28 weeks that it should be paid, and it would not affect, for example, a PG mutual member if they were receiving that statutory sick. And we said, OK, you've still got some form of income, we're not going to pay you your full benefit.

So the two do not affect each other. If you are an employer, please remember that you are obliged to pay your staff statutory sick pay or or the minimum equivalent. Because if you do provide your staff with some form of income protection, provided that it pays, In in circumstances that would qualify for statutory sick pay and provided it's equal to, if not more than statutory sick pay, then you wouldn't have to pay both.

Interesting. Thank you very much for that, Stephen. I have a question here, well, I'm sure I know what the answer is, but can a company take this out for their employees?

I suppose I've just answered that in a way, absolutely they can. And we have a lot of synergy within the vet community, we have quite a few, and I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not going to overregue, we have quite a few small businesses that do cover er themselves and their staff with us, . Again, it's, it's always been nice to working within the vet community to understand that that so many business owners do value their staff and consider this type of cover for them.

So yes, is the short answer to that, Paul. Perfect, thank you. And especially with the, staffing and recruitment crisis in the veterinary industry at the moment, something like this would go a long way actually to show that, you know, employees are.

Actually valued and and the the practise is on the staff side, I guess. Absolutely, it's retention of of staff is in most industries can be a problem. And there is evidence, I'm not going to quote statistics at you, but there is evidence, you can Google it, by all means, that at the moment there are a lot of additional benefits that employees value beyond pure remuneration.

You've got all the obvious such as pension, etc. But sick pay. Is significantly on the rise, why?

Because it's something that really has been taken away from a lot of employees over the last 1015 years. You go back much beyond that, and 6 months for 6 months half, used to be on everybody's lips. These days, I speak to a lot of employed individuals within the vet community and they're outside the vet community, where as I said at the beginning of the presentation, sick pay no longer exists.

Mm. Interesting. So that's a definite yes in that box then.

. Another question here, if you have, if you already have a protection plan, can you transfer it? Transfer's the wrong word, it's, it's no different than any other, insurance product. If you use car insurance for an example, you can shop around, so if you've got cover in place, feel free to have a look at another provider.

If you can get some of the cover that you're comfortable with, that's cheaper, then by all means, that, that would make sense. One word of warning though, I mentioned in the presentation that a lot of insurers, and we're no different, we'll ask you about your health. So please, if you have existing cover in place, do not cancel before you know exactly where you would stand with a new provider.

The last thing that any new provider would want to do really is to take you from one insurer, bring you in and suddenly go, oh, well, hang on a minute, don't forget we're not covering your left leg, they would have done. So make sure you are fully aware of any, any potential exclusions or limitations on the policy before you cancel an existing policy. Yeah, that's really good advice, excellent advice really.

And that ties into one of the questions that we have here as well. Someone's asked, if you currently have a disability, would you be rejected or excluded for the cover? It's not a, it's, it's not a definite yes or no.

Most organisations and PG are no different. We'll look at individual circumstances. I'll be perfectly honest, if somebody says to me they had a triple heart bypass last week, then I would be, I would.

Waste that person's time. I'll be very honest and say covers unlikely. What I would say is that each, each person, we will do as much due diligence as we can on whatever the the medical issue is, and we will be honest at the end of that process, as I mentioned.

If we can't help, we will tell you we can't help. And we, if. If thankfully, a full, a full rejection or situation where we're unable to put cover in place is fairly rare, but there are occasions, as I said during the presentation, where we do have to go back to somebody and say, look, we're more than happy to provide you cover.

We'd love to provide you cover, in fact, however, before you decide to take the cover, please note we cannot cover this medical issue. So it's always worth talking to, to the insurer, and somebody doesn't have to go through a full application process with us, albeit an application online is only around 10 minutes anyway. We're not sitting in our ivory tower, who suddenly speaks to us at PG Mutual and says, this is my issue, where would I stand?

We'd refer that straight to an underwriter, we wouldn't waste anybody's time to take. Yeah, I think that's you've hit the nail on the head there. It's about just having that conversation first and really making sure that you know, they ask any questions they have and they understand.

Where they stand with their current provider if they have one or, or what would be covered. It's just all about, speaking to you, isn't it? Yeah, can I cover that?

Sorry, Paul, because I mentioned the proliferation of products on, on some of the aggregator websites. There are some products out there now where there's minimal underwriting or an underwriting on a pre-existing basis. PG Mutual ourselves can potentially offer on, on our standard product, pre-existing .

To, to an effect, say to the customer, anything up to this point that's serious or chronic won't be covered. However, we've caveated that with if somebody goes on our website and says, I want to go pre-existing, I'm comfortable with that route that I know there's this wrong with me or, or, and you won't cover it, we do still ask that person a number of very serious health questions. Why?

Because we do not want to put cover in place that's worthless. If I use my example of somebody who had a very serious heart problem a week ago. Potentially that person could go on a website and say, I'm comfortable with pre-existing, you're not going to cover my heart.

That cover would be worthless. No insurer should take a premium off that person. We would ask that person, as I say, a small number of health questions, and we would immediately recognise that any cover we potentially put in place for that person would be worthless.

We would be taking money in a disingenuous manner. So again, be very careful if you're shopping around online, that even if you, Do see the pre-existing option. If you've got something seriously wrong with you, in my opinion, you're still better to talk, you're still better to ask, rather than just think fine, that won't be covered.

I'll I'll I'll take the cover anyway. Yeah, definitely, and that conversation is, is free and easy to get in touch with you guys as well, isn't it? Absolutely.

Perfect. Interesting question here as well. What happens if you actually don't recover from your injury, for example, and you actually end up retiring instead of heading back to work?

Very good point. It happens occasionally. The cover that we provide our members lasts till age 65.

Automatically, I can, I can think of lots of people around the country listening and thinking, well, retirement age is beyond 65 these days, but I need to be honest with people, at the moment, our cover would would provide you a monthly benefit until your 65th birthday. We are reviewing our maximum age. Our maximum age sits higher than some providers at the moment, but a little bit lower than others.

Again, if I'm being honest, so if, if, if somebody doesn't recover, if somebody has a life changing medical issue, that they're never able to go back to work. We will carry on paying that benefit until they're 65 years of age. Perfect, thank you very much.

. Yes, there is a question here regarding the the retirement age. It says, what can you do when the government not only moves the goalposts, but also changes the ball, changes the state retirement age after you claim to start leaving you with a gap of 7 years in cover. Absolutely, retirement age to us, well, I say retirement age, it's technically not retirement age anymore, is it?

We just provide cover, as I said, factually at this point in time, to be honest with people, that cover lasts until age 65. At the moment, if somebody's retiring beyond age 65, I'm afraid, again my honesty is that this cover stops at that person's 65th birthday. But as with other insurers, we are looking.

Now to try and match people's needs, people potentially working into their 70s moving forward. But as you can imagine, we have to be sensible. We have our members to look after.

Every decision we make affects our existing members. We need to make sure that when we do provide cover beyond 65, that the premiums and, and all the financial circumstances behind that for the business are are well looked into. So we will.

In the not too distant future be increasing our age beyond 65, but I cannot promise that, and I would not, I would be disingenuous of me at this point to say that that will definitely happen, with regards to premiums. But I agree entirely, posts by the government, by employers, etc. Being moved.

On an annual basis, which I suppose really does highlight the potential, you know, I've mentioned self-help society, it really does highlight the need to take care of yourself and by taking care of yourself, your loved ones. Well, that's it, isn't it? It's taking it from uncertainty to at least some certainty in place.

Absolutely. As I mentioned previously, to everyone who's listening and still with us, there, there will be a feedback questionnaire or survey that will pop up after this talk. Please do fill that in.

You'll be entered into a 50 pounds, Amazon voucher prize draw, and it's just great for us to get feedback from you on our webinars as well. Couple of final questions then we have here, Stephen, if you're OK for time. Yeah, no problem.

Excellent. So, it's a very good question here actually, yeah, if you need to be off work because your child or your partner is sick, is that covered as well? It isn't currently, again, full honesty, it covers you as an individual for being unable to work due to accident or illness.

Again, I'll be perfectly honest, there are some providers that, that, that do have a, a, a modest level of cover from a short term perspective in that eventuality. OK. But no, at the moment it is you being unable to work because you have an accident or an illness.

Again, if that's something of, of importance to you, don't forget to check the T's and C's in terms of that cover. Do not assume that it will provide the same level of cover as if it's yourself that's unable to work, very often the providers that, that, that looked into that provide a modicum of cover rather than full cover. Excellent, thanks, Steven.

Question here we have, would you be covered if it's a planned absence? So for example, if it's a surgery that you know is coming up in a certain number of months' time. Again, absolutely, provided it wasn't something that was already being investigated prior to applying for the cover.

So if I, if I explain that in more detail, if you, your doctor says, 6 months' time. You're gonna need to have this operation, and at that point you think oh I better get myself some income protection, you're too late, because obviously that's a pre-existing condition. If you take out income protection cover, there's nothing wrong with you, and 12 months later your doctor says, OK, yes, you've got this issue, it's the first time we've been aware of this issue.

It's, it's thankfully non life threatening, but in 6 months' time, this, you're gonna have to have an operation, and at that point you'll have 4 months of work, that would be covered. In terms of medical procedures, as I say, provided it wasn't a pre-existing condition. When you decided to to take cover out, they're all covered, except, it's one of the things that we often explain to people, except elective surgery.

So again, if somebody says I'm not particularly keen on the shape of my nose, I think I'll have that amended and spend a month off of work recovering from that. That wouldn't be classed as a medical issue, that's selective, rather than, health connected. Does that make sense, Paul?

That does indeed make sense, absolutely. We have a follow-up question to that as well, which is, what if you've been off recently for a similar surgery, for example, in the last 6 months. So I guess that would still be with the.

Prior to the, cover taking place and absolutely if, if, if it's something that that's that's reoccurred from a previous, Occurrence, for want of a better phrase, then it would probably fall into that pre-existing category. Medical underwriting would probably raise that as an issue, and depending on the severity of that issue, it may not it may or may not be covered. Again, just to remind you, PG Mutual would always let you know about that prior.

So it is highly likely, let's be honest with people, that if you've got a problem that, that recur, that occurs in January, reoccurs in July, it's probably going to be linked to something that's classed as pre-existing. But again, we are not ivory tower people, even on our preexisting route, we ask people, OK, if you want to go pre-existing, that's great, but is there anything you just want to confirm whether or not we would class it as pre-existing? So, you know, if I take a flippant view on that, if we say we're not covering anything serious that's occurred in your life up to this point, you could put in that box fine, I broke my toe when I was 3, when I kicked to bed.

Is that pre-existing or not? And quite rightly, we'd come back and go, not an issue. But if you said, look, 3 months ago, this medical, this this issue happened in my, in my life, my health deteriorated because of this point, and it could reoccur, probably we'd come back to you and say, yes, we would consider that pre-existing.

Again, we want to be fair and transparent with people and not start declining claims for people, because then it's, it's taking money off people in a disingenuous manner. Yeah, absolutely. That all makes sense.

Thank you, Stephen. From the employer side then, a question here, what, is the sort of process? I mean, is it similar to being off work?

Would you need a doctor's sick note? I mean, do you guys get involved with checking this out or anything, or is it just sort of submitted? It's, it's exactly the same from an employed perspective as an individual who covers, so if, if somebody's got cover through their employer.

We expect, we need the online claim form completing, takes about 5, 10 minutes, just to explain, what the issue is. As with any serious accident illness, you will have seen a, a medical practitioner at some point, so we would normally ask for a copy of the footnote. There is no double checking and, and.

Suddenly, you know, ringing employers up and getting involved in people's medical issues, that normally is all we require to make sure we can pay a claim for people. If somebody has a serious medical issue that that goes on and on, then obviously, we, we are in contact with those people. We even provide them support through a, through a network.

Nurses company called Morgan Ash to help people with second opinions, information that might be useful next time they see a consultant, but what we don't start doing is driving people down to the local doctors for second opinions. It's fill in the claim form, provide us with a copy of the fittnote or other medical records, and we'll carry on paying that claim. That's great, thank you, Stephen.

If anyone has any further questions or wants to get in touch with you directly, there's a way they can do that? Absolutely, there's two ways of doing it, Paul, I'm happy, more than happy if when you put things live, you want to put my contact details on there. But the easiest way really is our website is, is straightforward, PG mutual.co.uk.

There is a telephone or an email contacts on there as well, dead straightforward, if you want to speak to me personally, again. Within normal office hours, should I say, at 9 o'clock at night, I'm more than happy to take calls and, and speak to people, on an individual basis. If there is anybody thinking about, a practise and whether they want to put cover in place for their staff, again, easiest way to do that is a chat, best way for us to understand potentially what you're looking for, best way for you to understand potentially how we can meet those needs, .

I think my phrase that I often say to people is, a chat is a downside more interactive than a brochure. We are not double glazing salesmen, no offence to anybody who, whose partner may be a double glazing salesperson. We're here to help, we're here to provide information.

We're here to allow people to make an informed choice. The easiest way to do that very often is to have a, a full and frank conversation with people. So all information from a contact point of view is available on our website.

Excellent. Yeah, that's great, Stephen. I appreciate that.

We'll send out an email within the next week once the webinar is uploaded to the website as well. So if anyone wants to, recheck any of the details or listen again, it will be live. We'll put the contact details in there as well.

If anyone, does fill in the feedback survey as well, there's, an option there that you can let PG Mutual know to get in touch with you. And then obviously you can, follow up the conversation from there. Excellent, I believe that's all the questions then, so I will say thank you very much, Stephen for a brilliant and informative talk, a lot to think about.

Thank you very much and for for anybody who listened this evening again, thank you very much as well. Yeah, thank you very much for joining us guys. And if you are interested with the PG Mutual, don't forget you can get a discount with the code webinar vet, and we will see you on another webinar soon.

Thanks and good night.