Group Protection claims and support

My name is Brian Stacey, I work in engineering, I’m an NDT inspector and, I’ve done that for 35 years.

Before, I was very active. Used to go to the gym, go out most weekends and things like that.

I was at my friends shop and he noticed that my face had dropped and my speech was slurred and other things like that.

Sat at his shop and a ambulance pulls up outside. I say who’s that for?

He says you.

Did all the heart monitors and things like that and said we reckon you’ve had a stroke.

And then we went down to the hospital. They said you’ve had a bleed on the brain, on your left hand side. Which is where the weak side was. My speech was fine, to a degree. But, I was a bit slurred and things like that.

I then had a year off with the stroke and just got on with it really. I just wasn’t gonna give in and just carried on going.

My name is Anna O’Shaughnessy I work for a company called Krysalis consultancy limited.

Krysalis is a leading provider of neurological rehabilitation services in the UK, and offer a variety of different service streams to individuals with complex neurological conditions.

if an individual has a group income protection policy with Aviva, then a referral will come through to Krysalis following perhaps a diagnosis of a neurological condition or a neurological injury that an individual has sustained.

we deliver occupational therapy services and conduct comprehensive assessments with people to be able to understand and learn about the individual themselves, to establish how Krysalis may be able to support that individual through their rehabilitation journey.

The initial stage is getting in contact with Brian and having an initial chat and conversation and to introduce myself, my role, I very quickly learnt how open and honest Brian is, and started to understand him as a person right from that very first conversation.

We then arrange a more formal remote assessment where we conduct a variety of conversations, discussion and assessment to be able to underpin the challenges that Brian was facing at the time.

Additional things I worked with Brian on was relating to was things like fatigue management. The amount of energy that the brain needs to recover and heal and rewire that neuroplasticity is immense.

So its really important to help Brian to understand his symptoms, to understand why he was feeling the way he was feeling and to then look at his everyday life in order to help him. Its important for the organisation to understand element of Brians condition and how best they can support him at work.

Krysalis has been really good with me and the young lady they sent, Anna to help me out with all the different ideas and things like that to progress me on.

Its made me more confident outside of work as well. My driving has got a lot better.

I then went back to work. I cant do the job I was originally doing. I said I need something a bit simpler cause of the stroke and the memory side of it so I went on to a different job.

I feel a lot more confident in myself. That made me feel a lot better that somebody was actually being there for me and helping me out and giving me advice which is what they did.

Its really really important from an occupational therapy point of view to ensure that we have a really open, transparent with the individual, with the workplace and with the insurance company to make sure we have a consistent approach and that everybody understands first and foremost Brians needs, challenges and of course his strengths in order to support him in the best possible way.

Rehabilitation support is available to employees insured under Aviva Group Income Protection. It's a non-contractual benefit, which Aviva can change or withdraw at any time. 

I went for the results, and the consultant’s first words when I sat down in the office were, “I’m really sorry. It’s not good news.”

I'm Emma, I'm a children's nurse. I’m currently working in education. I have grown-up children 23 and 25, and I'm currently undergoing treatments for lobular breast cancer. I had some lumps in my breast. I had an operation to remove what they thought was three fibroadenomas. They'd removed the fibroadenomas, but they'd found invasive lobular carcinoma.

That was a big shock because I really wasn't expecting that. My second operation was planned. It was quite an extensive operation, but unfortunately, when I got the results of that one, they'd found five different tumours, quite a lot more cancer than they had expected. They'd also found that it was in my sentinel lymph nodes. I had to have a mastectomy and they checked some more lymph nodes, again, not expecting them to be positive, but there were a couple that were positive.

I started chemo, and then I'll still need some radiotherapy and I’ll need some hormone therapy, probably more long-term. This was all quite a lot because originally, I was told I'd need about eight weeks off work. I looked at my critical illness insurance. Your head is in a spin with everything going on, but that was the one thing that looked positive.

There's not very many positives about being diagnosed with breast cancer, and there's so many worries that you have, but actually, this was something that I could do actively. The claim process was really easy. When the claim was paid, it was a lot of relief. I was very lucky, and I get good sick benefit, I get six months full pay, six months half pay, but I realized that I would probably be going to half pay.

Chronic illnesses take a long time. You need the cover, to cover you while you're ill.

Critical Illness cover is available through Aviva Group Protection and Aviva Individual Protection.

Aviva Group Critical Illness provides financial cover if an insured employee is diagnosed with a critical illness or undergoes an operation covered by the policy. Our cancer definition covers instances of cancer, excluding less advanced cancers. The policy also includes cover for second and subsequent cancer as standard.  An employer also has the option to include access to a cancer drugs fund as part of the policy. Your financial adviser or employer can provide more information on how the cover works, the definitions and when it would pay out.  

So my name’s Marlena, and I’m 25 years old, I am a Protection Adviser and I have been advising now for just over 5 year

I speak to my clients every single day, why they need protection and why it’s so important and one day I just thought Marlena you need to take your own advice.

Because when you are fit and healthy you just never know if it’s going to stay that way or if something’s going to happen in the future.

Usually I’m quite bubbly, I’m really outgoing, I love socialising, going out with my friends. But I just started to feel more run down.

Um, so I did think actually this is not like me. So I turned to my Doctors and I told them the symptoms that I was feeling. So, one of the symptoms was, you know, migraines, nosebleeds, just feeling like you’ve got no energy whatsoever even though I’ve just woken up.

But they did kind of say, have you considered long Covid but I just felt within myself no, this is just not right how I’m feeling so I did turn to my Aviva policy for support.

So within my policy, I’ve got an amazing benefit called DigiCare+ which includes a lot of benefits such as annual health check, a private doctors appointment and also dietician sessions.

But I just thought to myself, actually the main one that I need is the annual health check, first, which is a really quick finger prick test, and then after that I’ve had a full report come back to me within days which showed me exactly what potentially could be wrong.

And I went on my app and really quickly I managed to get an appointment, which was a video appointment with a Doctor and they were able to explain to me what the results meant.

Probably one of the biggest concerns was my white blood cells, which we didn’t understand why they were so low. I felt it was really important to go and get that checked out.

So I’ve called my Doctors just to say that I did go privately to have a look at what was going on.

After I’ve explained my results roughly they actually said OK maybe you do need to be seen by a Doctor, which really did open a lot of doors because the next day I had a blood test and they’ve said we need to go and investigate it further.

Once they referred me to the hospital, they then diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome.

And obviously I felt like that was actually one of my most stressful and anxious times.

I’m quite an anxious person as it is and then knowing that actually, you might not be OK was just another level of anxiety.

So within my DigiCare+ you do also have some counselling sessions included.

It was really nice just to speak to someone and again feel like you are being heard and they are listening to you.

I feel like without that DigiCare+ I would not be able to get to the bottom of my health.

With me having such a great experience with using DigiCare+,

it makes the conversation with my client a lot better because they can really see the value of the benefit.

For more information on Aviva protection products and the wellbeing services available,

visit us online or speak to your financial adviser or your employer.

The annual Health Check and the digital GP services are wellbeing services that are available with the Aviva DigiCare+ app that is accessible with all eligible Aviva Protection products,

and the Aviva DigiCare+ Workplace app that is accessible with Aviva Group Protection products.

The apps and services mentioned are provided by Square Health.

They are non-contractual benefits that Aviva can change or withdraw at any time.

Terms, usage limits and residency restrictions apply.