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Comment - The value of a doctor’s report

Is teleunderwriting the way forward?

August 2008 News

I must confess that rather like the cost of a litre of diesel fuel, I shut my eyes and try not to think of the cost of a GP report. Years ago when I lectured on underwriting, I used to extol the virtues of what was then called an MAR, particularly in relation to underwriting disability insurance. Then it was a relatively modest sum like £15, but the British Medical Association (BMA) has driven the price up until it has started to make insurers think about its value and the value of alternatives.

It would be easy to brand the BMA as the villains, but it is their job to protect the interests of doctors in the UK and they feel, quite reasonably, that it causes GPs (their members) a huge amount of time to assemble the necessary evidence and submit it to the insurer. Whatever the reasons, insurers – forced to contain the cost of their bills on medical evidence – have looked at whether they can obtain the same sort of information in other ways.

This has given rise to a new era ushered in by the judicious use of teleunderwriting, a technique where an underwriter or nurse intervenes. The nurse either collects evidence in the sales interview or goes back after assimilating the medical details the adviser has obtained and drills down verbally to find out key facts about treatment and the insured’s attitude to it.

Now we are seeing really clever point of sale innovation where systems can carry out reflexive questioning to amazing effect. We are also seeing the use of pharmacy records to check treatment protocols and drop-in centres to carry out cheap, quick and accurate health assessments.

Whether the medical profession is delighted to be relieved of part of a potential time and resource problem I do not know, but the underwriting genie is out of the bottle now and the industry is discovering that there are alternatives to GP reports. Perhaps with the access we now have to medical evidence we can obtain our own notes and submit them. Whatever the situation our reliance on the GP report is a great deal less than it was.