Dr James, 0s:

Income protection isn't exactly something that gets us uber excited, but given that it's an expense for so many dentists a necessary expense we've got to know how to get the most out of it and also ensure that we're getting the best deal so that we can save money and reduce our overheads. And that's why we've got Mr Warren Robins with us today on the Dentists Who Invest podcast, who's read the small print on our behalf. What it means is he can distill all of that info down to the need to know pieces of relevant information and allow us to be able to save money. Today, we hate reading the small print because, let's be honest, it's boring as heck. So that's why we have people like you, Warren, who have read it on our behalf, to be able to save what's going on and pull out the need to know bits, which is kind of what this podcast is about today, and I get it. Ip is not something that's going to be. How can we say it is hyper accelerating and maybe people jump out of bed, but at the same time, a lot of us have it and if we can know this stuff and save money and get even better covered, it's actually really useful.

Warren, 1m 1s:

Yeah absolutely sort of. I think it's fair to say that income protection is not the sexiest topic on the planet, um, and fine print's probably even even less sexy, so, um, but there is a couple of things which I'm hearing a lot in 2025, sort of. Um, I'm speaking to people, um, and there seems to be quite a push from certain insurance companies, which are quite big in the dental market, where they're putting forward a certain narrative which I would certainly challenge, if not question. I'm getting told that certain companies are saying that their income protection policies are better because they offer own occupation cover and they also they know about dentistry, so that it's going to be better because of that. Um, now, if we look at understanding dentists, that is actually a valid point. However, I would say that they're not the only people that understand dentists. Now, there are advisors and, funnily enough, I'm one of them that specializes in the dental market. So I've got that dental expertise knowledge, but I also have the ability to access a wide range of insurers. So I would suggest that, yes, dental knowledge is a great thing to have. So I would suggest that, yes, dental knowledge is a great thing to have, but it's almost like if you're looking at a TV and you go to the Sony shop and look at the Sony TVs. Sony make great TV, but would you want to restrict yourself just to looking at Sony, or would you want to look at LG or the other TVs? So my opinion on this and admittedly I'm slightly biased, but I think there's value to look at as many options as possible. So yeah, dental expertise good, but don't limit yourself to just one insurance company. Um, now, own occupation cover. Um, own occupation cover is something that's extremely important. Um, essentially means that if you can't do your normal duties as a dentist, you have a valid claim. Now the issue is pretty much every insurer on the planet now is offering dentists an occupation cover. Historically it may not have been the case, but that's really an important thing. So it's no longer the differentiator that it used to be. So if somebody is saying to you we offer an occupation cover for dentists, regular protection, realistically the answer is big deal. In fact, that used to be the gold standard. There is now a small number of insurers where they've stepped it up again slightly from that and these insurers are offering own job. Now it won't necessarily make a huge difference to the majority of dentists, because if you're just a dentist and doing pretty routine dentist job, then essentially the profile that you're covered for is exactly what you're doing. However, if you're doing something maybe a little bit different so maybe you're, you've moved into a predominantly research role and you're not doing the typical dentist duties an own job definition of finger protection could actually be worthwhile having, and that's saying that even if you're capable of doing general dental duties but you can't do the specific things that you're specialising in, you have a valid claim, so you could argue for certain specific specialisms within dentistry. That could actually be a worthwhile advantage In terms of the own occupation. Just to put the comparison, the other types of cover that are available are things like activities of daily living, where you you wash and dress and feed yourself. Specified work tasks is things like can you write legibly, can you type, can you hold a weight and put it back on the table for 60 seconds? It's a variety of things, and that's another thing. I'm hearing from some of the insurers saying that their claim statistics are incredibly good and, on the face of it, if you have two companies and one of them has a really impressive sounding payout percentage and another one is a lower one, it's not unreasonable to think that you probably want to go with the company that's offering the better payout history. But the issue is when you look at these different occupation classes where own occupation most of the claims are going to be paid out for that If you're working and you have a policy with specified work tasks. I did speak to an insurance company about five years or so ago and they don't publish these stats. But I asked them what is the percentage of payout you get on policies that are not own occupation cover, and I thought it'd be down a bit compared to the own occupation policies. An interesting thing was I was told we're not going to give you figures on this, but it's about 65%. So roughly a third of the claims for policies on anger protection that are not on occupation were declined Because if you're doing a certain job, you might not be able to do that job. But if you're digging holes in the road or you've got a physical job you're a carpenter, and you haven't got an occupation cover, they say get a seat, go and work in a call center because you're capable of doing that, in which case you would not have a valid claim. Now, if you then factor that in that certain companies they work with professionals only, so they have always offered an occupation cover. So so they've got the, by definition, a policy type that is going to have a higher payout rate. If you look at some other companies, which historically they've had a mixture, and if you've got 20% of the policies that are on non-owned occupation and they're paying out two thirds and 80% of their own occupation own occupation paying out, say, 98%, which is what some of these companies are talking about the net average is around about 90 less than 92% payout, even though both of them are paying out around about 98% on own occupation. So when you're looking at figures you need to drill down a little bit deeper than just the, the headline rates, and then, combined with that, you then got the issue is there is no universal way of judging what is a claim and what isn't, so different insurance companies can process their inquiries about claims in different ways, and company a might go. Every person that phones up to make an inquiry about a claim we're classing as a claim. Another company may have a pre-filtering system. Where they go. We'll have a quick chat with you to see whether you've got a valid claim in any way, shape or form, and if you haven't, you know we won't put you through to the claims department. So claim statistics are there's a lot of smoke and mirrors, so for me they can be taken with a large pinch of salt. I think what is more important is the quality of the application. So if you have a policy that is correctly applied for, so everything is done meticulously, all the information is required and all the answer questions are answered accurately and it's an occupation cover pretty much regardless of the insurance company. If you can't do your job as a dentist, you have a valid claim. So, whereas if you have a shoddily put together application for insurance company with a company with fantastic claims history, you've got a much greater chance, in my opinion, that that will be declined because something's wrong and when they do the checks at the point of claim, they find something's wrong and the reason that that is so important. I speak to a lot of people week in, week out and on a regular basis. I come across people when I get their medical background and I then look at their applications for cover that they have in place. The two don't match, so there's things that have been omitted from their applications which could easily invalidate their insurance that they were not even aware of. That. You get absolutely accurate information on an application for whatever insurance it may be, whether that be income protection, life insurance, critical illness cover you name it. Having 100% accurate information on your application is the key to making sure you have a valid claim at the time of rise.

Dr James, 9m 51s:

And forgive my ignorance on this, because you'll know way more about this than me. How is that safeguarded by a broker or someone like yourself, so we know that's 100% correct? Or is that down to the applicant? How does that work?

Warren, 10m 6s:

Well, it certainly shouldn't be down to the applicant. In my view, for me, the whole point of the process that I do is about transparency. The whole point of the process that I do is about transparency because I've seen the potential downsides of people having given answers. Sometimes it's individuals have done it themselves and they've not understood the questions. But there are still instances where I come across where the broker has been given certain information and they've not put it through to the insurance company. Now, with all of my clients, I believe in total transparency. So my approach is, when I do an application with a client, like we're doing now, I'll do a screen share so I'll log into the portal for the insurance company. The client will see the questions, they'll give me the answers and they'll see me answer the questions exactly as they give me through the whole application. So they actually share the screen with me throughout the whole application process. So there's 100% transparency and what that should hopefully give my clients is peace of mind. I'm not saying it's the only way to do it, because there's other ways of doing it. If you don't do that approach, just get a copy of the application and then go through the fine-tooth comb just to make sure that, if you haven't been involved with the actual application itself, that you sort of sense check the application afterwards. You get a copy of the application at any time from anybody or the insurance company, and that way, as long as you know that everything that the insurance company has asked you've answered correctly and honestly, you should be covered.

Dr James, 11m 40s:

You were talking about own occupation cover just a moment ago and I was just wondering is there something similar in the critical illness world as well? Critical illness cover world.

Warren, 11m 52s:

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. There is actually it's not so obvious. A good critical illness policy may have 60 upwards conditions covered. Each of those conditions has its fine print, so they're very specific. They cover very specific conditions. Now there is an option with critical illness cover, something called total and permanent disability cover very specific conditions. Now there is an option with critical illness cover, something called total and permanent disability A bit of a mouthful, so referred normally to as TPD. So now with the TPD, you have a very similar situation to the own occupation, any occupation, work tasks and activities of daily living that you get with income protection, work tasks and active activities of daily living that you get with income protection. Now, the interesting thing with this, unlike the situation with dentists and income protection, where pretty much every insurer these days offers their own occupation cover, it's the opposite for the total permanent disability or tpd, for dentists with critical illness cover. So, um, there's there's only a small handful of insurers that would allow that on an own occupation basis. Now, the reason that that's important is, if you're a dentist, um, the major conditions are covered regardless of whatever type of job you do. But the tpd it's a bit of a design is a bit bit of a catch-all. So if you have own occupation TPD, it means if you can't do, if you come down with something, it means you can't do your job permanently, even something relatively minor. So if you have a hand injury and you've lost some motor skills and that's deemed that you're never going to recover from that, therefore you can't do your job ever again. If you have own occupation TPDd, you get a full payout even though it's a relatively minor injury and it's not realistically viewed as critical. So it's a massive advantage. Whereas if you have work tasks or activities of daily living or specify work tasks, you have to be very, very seriously injured or damaged and being capable of things like walking up and down 12 stairs, walking 200 meters on a flat surface. So for me, one of the most important things if you are considering taking critical illness, make sure you have the TPD option and make sure it is the own occupation version. Because that catch-all if it covers you if you can't do your own job I would argue probably outweighs some of the variations between the actual critical illness conditions in policies, because most of the policies now they're pretty good when it comes to the critical illness cover, um, back in the day when I first started working in insurance, um the conditions and the definitions weren't too good. So loss of limbs is one of those common things that people are aware of. On critical illness cover, back in the day it literally was loss of limbs, so if you lost one arm or one leg you didn't get a penny. You had to lose two or more limbs to get paid out on critical illness cover that little s just hiding in there.

Dr James, 14m 57s:

Limbs plural it's obviously there but people just think it's loss of limb.

Warren, 15m 2s:

But it wasn't. It literally was the um. The standard definition was you need to lose two or more limbs. So if you had an arm in a farm machine, you've got to decide whether you get it's a leg or another arm going in to get your payout.

Dr James, 15m 14s:

So if you only had one hand, you're still good to practice dentistry, according to them.

Warren, 15m 18s:

Well, yeah, it wouldn't be an issue, you wouldn't get paid out. But the modern policies, it's loss of limb. It's all about the fine print in critical illness cover. You used to be able to be registered blind and claiming benefits in the UK and the measurement for that would not get you a pair on most critical illness policies. So it's all about the fine print and that's why, with a profession that's so skilled as dentistry, where you need those fine motor skills, you need the own occupation TPD so that if you can't do your job in the future you get the full payout. And I did speak to a client a number of weeks back and one of his ex-colleagues was claiming on his critical illness cover because he couldn't work again. But he also got paid out a million pounds on his TPD on his critical illness policy and luckily he was with one of the three insurers that offer their own occupation. If he'd have gone with somebody else he wouldn't have got a penny. So it is, you know, it's important not just in theory but in the real world as well, and that was a great example. Um, and that sort of you know spiked in my mind at that point, sort of um that I could say to this that you know, my client client said, well, was he with A, b or C? And she said I was actually with that one. So, because it is literally that some of the insurers have left the market in the last couple of years and that's actually shrunk the pool of insurers that will offer an occupation TPE to dentists it used to be more like half a dozen, now it's pretty much halved. There used to be more like half a dozen, now it's pretty much halved. So so, yeah, um, I guess that's pretty much it really on the, uh, the own occupation type stuff. So, uh, if anybody has desire to discuss that, and whether it be on the income protection side of things or on the critical illness side of stuff or even life insurance, um, feel free to get in touch with me. I can be emailed on wrobbins at medidentfscouk. Or if you want to book directly into my diary, just go on to the www.medidentfs.co.uk website and either send me a message or book a chat, feel free.