Aviva Adviser: Protection Underwriting Centre

We’ve created our adviser underwriting centre to make the underwriting process quicker and easier for you. It’s full of information, tips and resources to help things run more smoothly. From our general underwriting philosophy to details of our approach to medical conditions, lifestyle, occupations and other factors, you’ll find it all here.

Underwriting at Aviva

Our philosophy and approach

Our philosophy

Robert Morrison, Chief Underwriting Officer: "Our commitment is to provide your customers with a digital underwriting experience that is straightforward and effortless whilst ensuring every customer is assessed as an individual in terms of the risk they present, thereby providing the fairest premium."

Our approach

We’re proud to say that around 8 out of 10 customers receive an immediate decision, rising to around 9 out of 10 within 48 hours. That’s because we’ve created a process that’s simple, yet detailed enough to give us all the information we need to make an informed decision.

By combining our intelligent underwriting systems and the knowledge of our underwriters, we aim to ensure that even our most complex cases can be handled as quickly as possible.

Experienced underwriters

All our underwriters have to go through our Underwriting Academy. Through developing an understanding of medical conditions, technical knowledge and risk, we’re confident that every one of them is capable of making the right decision for your clients.

Our changing technology

We’re constantly trying to make the underwriting process more streamlined for you, which is why we have introduced e-AMRAs. Combining this with our real-time tracking and automated iGPR solution helps to ensure that you and your clients have a speedy and well-informed underwriting journey.

ABI Mental Health Standards

At Aviva we’ve fully embedded the ABI Mental Health Standards to support you and your customers.

High value

We know how important high-value protection business is to you, which is why we have a specialist high-value team to provide a bespoke service. The team looks after applications for:

Life cover of more than £1.5 million
Critical illness cover of more than £750,000
Whole of life cover of more than £500,000
Income protection cover of more than £75,000 annual benefit
Any policy with a premium that is over £500 p/m or £6,000 per year

To find out more about this service, click on the headings and take a look at our handy guide.

Who to contact

Our bespoke service

Financial

We get most of the financial information we need as part of the application.
We offer a short question and declaration approach which means we expect more than 80% of applications up to £2.5m life cover and £1m critical illness cover being accepted financially with it.
If we need to ask for financial information, we'll make the process as efficient and painless as possible.

Medical

We don't want to waste your clients' time by asking them to attend any unnecessary appointments. Instead we'll use existing medical information wherever possible. So, if your client has had an executive screening in the last nine months or completed a medical exam with another provider, we will endeavour to obtain a copy.
If we do need new evidence, your client can choose the surgery where the medical examination takes place (subject to satisfactory fees).
Or, with our mobile doctors service, they can choose a different location altogether such as their home or workplace.
We use providers with a nationwide network, who are flexible enough to meet your client's busy schedules.

Even more reasons to choose Aviva

As well as our service promise:

We provide a fast and efficient pre-sales service, managing all aspects of your client's case effectively right from the start.
We can accept high levels of cover for life insurance, critical illness and income protection.
We have a strong brand with a long history of protecting what's important to your clients.

It goes without saying that you want to give your high value clients the best possible value. So we work closely with our pricing experts to offer the best price we can. What's more, where customers are eligible, our protection promise will provide free life cover between the point of application and the completion of underwriting.

Flexible financial underwriting

When we need information:

We start asking for financial information when the intended overall cover in the market is:

£1,500,001 or more life cover
£750,001 or more critical illness cover

Although, if we have clarity around the purpose of cover, we do not routinely aggregate business and personal cover when determining any financial requirements.

NB: lower limits of £750,001 life and £375,001 CI apply for house persons, retired, students and the unemployed.

Methods of information gathering

We have a flexible approach to financial evidence gathering:

Submit online as part of the application process.
Short financial questionnaire (a quick question and declaration approach)
Full financial questionnaire (this is if the overall cover is more than £2.5m (life) or £1m (CI), we may also use this if the short questionnaire is insufficient)
A recorded call with a high value underwriter at any time during the underwriting process (even at pre-sales stage) for up to £3m life cover and/or £1m CI cover (select option 2 on the support line 0800 092 9964)
We don't insist on a formal financial questionnaire if a bespoke report covers off the salient points, including overall cover.
Factfinds instead of financial questionnaire for up to £3m life cover and/or £1.5m CI cover.
High market limits, where supporting evidence is needed for more than £4m life cover or £2m CI cover.
We don't ask independent third parties to countersign financial questionnaires.
We can download copies of accounts from Companies House so you don't have to.

A guide to how much cover we'll consider

Purpose of cover	Short financial questionnaire What we can allow with this quick question & declaration approach. For use where overall intended market cover will not exceed £2.5m Life or £1m CI.			Full financial questionnaire Higher amounts of cover can be considered if this financial questionnaire is completed, with potentially even higher levels with a sound calculation and rationale
Personal or Family (can consider adding in any unprotected residence mortgages, bearing in mind term of the policy versus repayment date of the loan)	Age range	Multiple of earned income for age and benefit		Age range	Multiple of earned income for age and benefit
	Age range	Life	CI	Age range	Life	CI
	Up to 35	27	10	Up to 35	30	11
	36 to 45	21	8	36 to 45	25	9
	46 to 55	15	6	46 to 55	18	7
	56 to 65	9	4	56 to 65	12	5
	66 up	6	N/A	66 up	7	N/A
Key person (can consider adding in any unprotected commercial loans bearing in mind term of the policy versus repayment date of the loan)	The last 12 months Net profit before tax: Up to 5 times for Life cover Up to 3 times for CI (Total between all key persons for the business.)			Average of the last 2 years Gross Profit (attributable to the key person) multiplied by 2 or Average of the last 12 months Net profit before tax (attributable to the key person) multiplied by 5 for Life cover and 3 for CI or For replacements costs we usually allow 5 times salary, although up to 10 times can be considered
Shareholder/ Partnership	Valuation of the business does not exceed 8 times the last 12 months Net profit after tax. (Sum assured applied for will relate to the % shareholding.)			Average of last 2 years Net profit after tax multiplied by 10 or 3 times the average of the last 2 years Gross Profit or We will consider any other appropriate method of valuing businesses
Business loan	The amount of loan for which the key person is responsible			As per the Short financial questionnaire
Buy to let	Full amount of the liabilities			Usually allow 100% of the first £2m Life cover, then 50% of the balance. Cap CI at £1m
IHT	Full amount of IHT liability as long as that liability does not arise after the policy proceeds become payable, i.e. a 2nd death policy may be appropriate.			As per the Short financial questionnaire
Gift related IHT	Full amount. But the series of policies need to match the tapering effect of the liability (divided by 5 with policy terms of 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 years)			As per the Short financial questionnaire

Relevant Life: Exactly the same as for Personal cover (including adding in mortgages)

We are able to take into account any earned income/remuneration irrespective whether that income is related to the particular Policyholder/Employer or not.

Earned income includes salary, benefits in kind and regular dividends and bonuses from any employment, i.e. income that will be lost on death or critical illness.

Tools, calculators and links

Guides, forms and calculators

Download our PDFs for further information about our underwriting processes and use our calculators to find out your client's BMI and rating or how much income protection cover they maybe entitled to.

Underwriting guides

View more documents

Forms

View more documents

BMI calculator

Work out your client's BMI and rating*

_{*You'll need to log in to view this}

Use our BMI calculator about BMI calculator

Income Protection Maximum Benefit calculator

Find out how much cover you client is entitled to in relation to their income.

Use our Income Protection max benefit calculator about Income Protection Maximum Benefit calculator

Protection underwriting centre