Customised Solutions  

You’ll need to decide what level of weekly cover you need. Our income protection contract will pay you up to 60% of your pre-incapacity earnings and the maximum initial level of cover you can apply for is £1,200 per week.

You’ll also need to decide how soon after the start of any illness or injury you’d like your benefit payments to start. This is known as the ‘deferred period’. You can choose to have your benefits payable from the first day of incapacity or after a deferred period of any number of weeks between one and 52, or even two years. The longer the deferred period, the cheaper your premiums are likely to be.

If you’re entitled to receive sick pay for a specific length of time from your employer, have other income protection insurance policies, or wish to rely on savings during short-term incapacity, you can choose deferred periods that provide a seamless fit. For example, if you’re entitled to receive sick pay from your employer for up to four weeks, then you might choose an income protection contract which has benefit payments deferred for four weeks. However, if you’re self-employed and won’t receive any sick pay, then you might choose to have your benefits payable from the first day of any illness or injury. You can also choose multiple deferred periods within your contract.

You’ll need to decide what happens to your benefit payments in the event of a long-term claim:

Indexation of Benefit Payments: Choose this option if you’d like to have your benefit payments increase in line with inflation each year, helping preserve the real value in the long term. This is the most expensive of the three benefit payment options.

Level Benefits: Choose this option if you’d like your benefit payments to remain at a constant level throughout a long-term claim.

Reducing Benefits: Choose this option if you’d like your benefit payments to reduce over time during a long-term claim. With this option, you’ll receive the full weekly rate for the first 26 weeks of any claim, 50% for the next 26 weeks and 30% for the remainder of the claim. However, this option is only available where you’ve chosen to have benefits payable from the first day of incapacity.

You’ll also need to decide what shareholding you’d like, as your entitlement to share in our surpluses is determined by the number of Shares you hold. All members of Dentists’ Provident must hold at least 1 Share, but the maximum number you can hold depends on the level of income protection cover you have, subject to an overall maximum of 2,000 Shares. Click here for more information on our Shares.

Escalation of Cover
Choose this option if you’d like your cover to increase each year in line with inflation, regardless of any claims. If your income doesn’t increase in certain years and does in others, you can refuse Escalation of Cover in some years and accept it in others.

Enhanced Death Benefit
Choose this option if you’d like us to pay your estate a one-off lump sum, equal to 26 weeks of benefit payments, if you die within 12 months of the start of your claim because of the illness or injury you claimed for. This is paid in addition to the cash lump sum which accumulates as a result of your shareholding.

Increasable Sickness Benefit
Choose this option if you’d like the opportunity to increase your cover, subject to certain limits, without the need for further medical evidence on the 6th, 12th and / or 15th anniversary of taking out the cover.

The increases under this option are in addition to Escalation of Cover and you can use them to adapt your cover to major events in your life, like marriage or civil partnership, purchasing a new practice or home, becoming a parent, or when you enjoy a significant increase in your income.

Severe Disability Benefit
Choose this option if you’d like to receive a regular top-up payment of 20% of the value of your weekly benefit payments as at the start of the claim, if your incapacity satisfies certain predefined criteria.

We know that certain illnesses or injuries can change your life forever and, if the worst were to happen, your long-term financial requirements may be greater than those covered by your regular income protection benefit payments.