Mental health is now the biggest cause of claim in group risk markets. Katharine Moxham outlines the scale of the problem.
Mental health issues are more than prominent when talking about the workplace these days.
Advisers commend the basics of group income protection cover but can struggle with mismatching extras such as under-used Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) and lack of integration with other support services, such as occupational health.
But how big is the development task of tackling the escalating problem of mental health-related absences?
Back in the late 1970s, there was a relatively new product called Permanent Health Insurance (or PHI). Employers would dust off the policy when someone had been off sick for five or six months (or sometimes even longer) - by which time, the employee's problem would very likely be so entrenched that there was often little expectation of a return to work.
There would then follow a protracted period of medical evidence gathering and, if admitted, a claim would often be paid to retirement.
The mindset was "you are ill so you must take it easy". GPs signed people off work for six months at a time without a second thought. There was little focus on capability, little understanding of co-morbidity and the effect of illness or disability on mental health or, indeed of the fact that "work is good for us".
However, over the intervening years, the group risk industry has come to understand all of these things. The industry pioneered vocational rehabilitation in the UK and was among the first to understand the bio-psycho-social model in the context of illness and disability.
We therefore recognised the need to refocus on capability rather than inability long before Employment and Support Allowance and the Work Capability Assessment refocused state provision in this way.
We also came to understand that work plays a crucial part in promoting mental wellbeing - it is important for self-esteem and identity. It can provide a sense of fulfilment and the opportunity for social interaction and, for most people it is their main source of income.
Fast forward 30 or so years and we now have a very different offering - called group income protection - which is best thought of as a collection of employer and employee support services with some insurance sitting in the background just in case.
Department of Health statistics show one-in-four adults experience mental illness at some point during their lifetime and one-in-six experience symptoms at any one time - making mental ill health the largest single cause of disability in our society.
Not surprisingly then, it is the top cause of claim under group income protection policies too, and has been for several years now, having overtaken musculoskeletal conditions.
As an industry, we understand perfectly the need for effective early interventions - particularly for mental ill health and stress-related absence.
