Luke’s business suffered when his health did. Thankfully, his income protection insurance was there to help them both out.
By Nick Green
Luke – the customer
“Being a self-employed carpenter, the work wasn’t always guaranteed and sick pay wasn’t a thing. In a meeting with my mortgage adviser, she encouraged me to get income protection. That was in 2017. About two years later I started to feel unwell in the summer, but I didn’t realise how bad it was till November when I ended up in hospital. I lost the use of my right hand, and quite a lot of mobility in my left hand, and was diagnosed with Vaculitis. As I’m right-handed, this diagnosis meant I wasn’t able to go back to my trade.
“I spent a lot of December and the New Year in hospital. It wasn’t until I started to get treatment that I called Aviva to make the claim.
“I spoke to Hannah and told her my situation. She investigated my condition, looked into my doctors’ records and confirmed my claim would be successful.
“This was a big help as she confirmed Aviva would pay the full benefit. I was in quite a bad way, so knowing my finances were stable was a massive relief. It was brilliant as, without my monthly payment from Aviva, I would have been forced to go back to work – almost impossible because of the treatment I was having.
“Hannah was my Aviva contact throughout and she kept saying ‘If there’s anything at all you need, just ask and we will see what we can get sorted for you.’
“When a new job in security came up, I couldn’t afford the training courses with everything else that was happening. That’s when I called Hannah and asked if was possible for Aviva to pay for the course. I thought ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’.
“Before this I was sceptical about the benefit of income protection. I wondered if I was paying for cover I’d never need because I thought ‘what could go wrong?’ But now after everything that’s happened, I’m just relieved I had the cover in place when I needed it.”
Hannah – the claim handler
“Where we can, we try to use the same claim handler throughout the individual protection customer journey. It makes conversations flow so much easier and you can build that rapport.
“Luke was lovely to talk to. When having these initial conversations we assess the bigger picture to see if there are any areas customers need support with, be that at work or at home.
“It was Luke who approached me to ask if Aviva could pay for his security course. This was something we can consider and he was so motivated to get back into work I wanted to try and help. If we can, we will try to look for other ways to help as well as paying the claim.
“I approached Nicola, our rehabilitation case manager, with the idea and we decided to try it. Luke called us in January and he was back working in October.
“The fact we were able to do this and get him back work was a huge achievement and a boost for the team.
“This is all in the day-to-day of my role, but it’s really lovely to hear how much it’s actually helped a customer.”
See how income protection cover can help protect you and your family here.
*Names have been changed.
