Free health assessment with Bupa income protection

The UK insurer, Bupa is offering all new income protection customers a free health assessment as part of their core offering. The Bupa Core Health Assessment is usually charged at £149.

All new customers will be offered the free assessment irrespective of whether they took out cover directly from the insurer or whether they took out cover via a financial adviser or broker.

The Offer

Clients are able to choose from any one of Bupa’s 40 assessment centres right across the United Kingdom. The only downside to the deal is that the offer only lasts until the 17th of October 2010.

It is likely that Bupa are currently trialing this scheme and Drewberry Income Protection hopes they will make this offering a permanent feature of their policy as an added benefit to customers.

This new offering could help to provide another reason for clients to choose Bupa over other protection providers in the market. It is likely the offering will be extremely popular with potential customers as long as the cost of the scheme is not indirectly charged back to clients through higher monthly premiums.

The Assessment

The type of tests conducted in the assessment include body fat ratios, body mass index comparison, blood pressure readings, cholesterol readings, fasting blood glucose tests and tests for potential heart disease and diabetes.

The health assessment not only evaluates the current health of the policyholder but also aims to provide specific help and information on reducing future health risks. In order to do this the medical professionals at Bupa evaluate the current lifestyle of the policyholder in order to get an understanding of their current situation and determine possible future risks.

It is important to note that the health checks are not part of the underwriting process at application stage so no information collected at the assessment will affect the monthly premiums charged for the policy. The health assessment is conducted after the client goes on risk and the premiums have already been determined.

Update (04/04/2012): Please note that the life and income insurance business of Bupa was bought by Friends Life in 2011. The new Friends Life income protection plan retains many of the aspects of Bupa’s plan.