Tele-interview is better than a GPR

For years the protection industry has been plagued by the delays caused by providers being required to collect general practitioners’ reports (GPRs). Reinsurers have required providers to collect GPRs for cases with higher ages and higher sums assured, known as medical limits.

A study by MorganAsh has shown that a full MorganAsh nurse tele-interview is better than a GPR in a like-for-like comparison. Both the tele-interview and the GPR were collected for protection cases in a direct comparison study. The study pooled results from six companies, including IFAs, bank assurance and agent distribution from a total of 657 applications. The amount of missing information was collated for the two sources. For life and CI cases, 5% of GPRs had some material information missing (i.e. the information was so significant it would change the underwriting decision), while for the tele-interviews, only 2% of cases had some material information missing. This increased to 12.5% for income protection cases from the GPR, compared with 7% from the tele-interview.

This shows that the MorganAsh full nurse tele-interview is better at finding out ‘their current health’, although GPRs are still required for providing details of complex conditions or simply when the applicant cannot recall sufficient information.

While these studies are not exhaustive, and may vary for providers and products, the pattern of the tele-interview providing more information than the GPR is consistent in all studies undertaken to date on MorganAsh full nurse tele-interviews.

Traditional medical limits took the approach that the GPR was the best source of information on an applicant’s medical history, and hence required a GPR to be obtained for the riskier higher sum assured applicants. Now, as MorganAsh tele-interviewing has shown to be better, the GPR limits can be revised to make full use of the tele-interview.

One of the simple explanations for this is the increase in the use of alternative sources of medical assistance rather than the GP, with consumers often choosing to go specialist chiropractors, counsellors, physiotherapists etc rather than to their GP.

This week the government announced the increased use of pharmacists for primary care, rather than the GP, which will further deteriorate the GPR as a source of data for insurance purposes. Further, underwriters commonly comment that the move to electronic reports has reduced the quality of the information for insurance purposes.

Keith Robertson, chief underwriter at Lincoln Financial Group, commented: “The GPR as a source of information has been declining over the years. The move to electronic reports has in fact added to the deterioration. The MorganAsh tele-interview has proven to be better than the GPR and we are now using it as our primary source of collecting applicants’ medical information. We are reducing the number of GPRs we require dramatically.”

There are different types of tele-interview being undertaken by some companies, and it is important to note that this result is only applicable for the MorganAsh full nurse tele-interview.

This means that most of the delays in underwriting due to waiting for GPRs can be reduced and the service to financial advisers massively improved. With the MorganAsh tele-interview having a turnround time of 5 days, compared to 28 days for a GPR, this will lead to a great improvement in service for the advisers.

Andrew Gething, managing director for MorganAsh, commented: “Our customers have reduced the amount of GPRs by 60–70% and halved their turnround times. This dramatic improvement in service and the present drop in mortgages gives the industry a real window of opportunity to increase protection sales.”