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Friends Provident is implementing a new approach to the application process for income protection insurance by having qualified nurses carry out the first stage telephone interview.

The aim is to reduce non-disclosure, speed up the application process, produce more informed underwriting decisions and promote signature free applications.

Nurses will ask applicants questions about their medical history, including detailed questions where specific disclosure is required.

Mark Jones, protection products and actuarial manager at Friends Provident said: "The new tele-interviewing service will speed up processing which will benefit advisers and it will enable us to gather more detailed information about the applicant’s health."

The new process should also reduce the need for GPs reports as the trained nurse tele-interviews provide better information than regular staff.

In many cases the interviews will provide sufficient information to enable underwriting without a GP report.

Friends Provident hopes the application process will be reduced from weeks to days.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Industry.