Holloway Friendly introduces radical improvements to underwriting customers with certain mental health conditions

Holloway Friendly has today launched its new approach to underwriting people who have certain previous or current mental health conditions.  This follows the announcement in October last year by Stuart Tragheim, Holloway’s CEO that they planned to bring radical changes to the underwriting approach for customers who had experienced short term mental health issues that are now being managed. 

The changes build on Holloway’s brand purpose to adopt a more inclusive approach to underwriting, thereby enabling more customers to get income protection cover.

Stuart Tragheim said, “We want to help improve access to income protection cover for more customers who have experienced short-term mental health problems and where they have recovered from the condition or it is being well managed.  The historical underwriting approach adopted by many insurers is outdated and doesn’t reflect the increased knowledge and management of Mental Health conditions that is now available. 

We believe our new approach to be market-leading and we encourage other insurers to review their approach to how they underwrite customers with mental health conditions so we can improve access to insurance”.

The details of the new approach are:

• The new philosophy offers a more personalised underwriting approach which will consider if cover can be provided without automatic exclusions even if medication is already being used
• The new question set enables each applicant to be assessed individually so their full ‘mental health’ experiences, and how these are managed, are really understood
• By collaborating with mental health experts the Society have gained credible insight to support the changes and develop this market leading approach

Suzy Esson, Head of Operations at Holloway Friendly, commented:

“I am very excited that we have been able to deliver this new approach to underwriting mental health conditions. As we become more aware of our mental health and the maintenance of this, it’s only right that we update our underwriting philosophy to reflect these changes. This is a brave, pioneering change which will make such a positive difference to the perception of mental health conditions and how we, as an industry, treat those affected by it.”