We are a leading provider of income protection insurance for dental professionals. For over a century we have helped thousands of dental professionals achieve financial security during periods of illness or injury.
This page aims to answer some of the most common questions about our plans. If there is anything else that you’d like to know, which is not covered here, please contact our member services team on +44 (0) 20 7400 5700.
The Foundation protection plan is a personal income protection insurance plan designed for dental students in the later stages of their education and newly qualified dental professionals. If you cannot complete your education because of a permanent illness or injury, it pays you a one off sum of money.
If you have completed your education and started work, it pays you regular benefit payments to help replace the income you lose if you cannot work because you are ill or injured.
You can only apply for this plan if you:
Your personalised illustration shows your monthly premiums for your chosen plan based on our standard premium rates. Your premiums depend on several factors such as your age, nicotine use and how you have chosen to customise your plan.
Sometimes, because of your health or family history, your actual premium will be different from that shown in your personalised illustration. If this happens, we will contact you to explain the reasons for this and we will not start your cover without your agreement.
When setting up your plan, you will need to make a few decisions so that it meets your needs. You need to:
Once you have completed your education and started work, your plan and your entitlement to benefits will automatically end when all your covers end, which will normally be on your 65th birthday. However, you can choose any age between 55 and 65, if it better suits your needs. If your long term career plans change after your plan has started, you can reduce the age when your cover stops by giving us advance notice.
If you start your plan as a student and you cannot finish your education within 12 months of the expected completion date stated in your application or you receive benefits because an illness or injury which stops you from completing your education, then your plan will end immediately.
If you select this option, your premiums will not normally increase with your age or if our claims experience gets worse.
If you do not select this option then, besides any changes in your premiums which happen as you get older, we can also change your premiums every January because of changes in our claims costs or business expenses. If we review our premium rates, we will give you at least 60 days advanced notice of any changes.
If the premium rates increase, you can choose to pay the increased premiums or keep your monthly premiums the same by reducing your cover.
Your plan also comes with a number of features as standard, these are:
Your cover during your education is a lump sum payment of £45,000. After the end of your education, your initial cover will be £21,000 a year, or £1,750 a month.
If you make a claim for an illness or injury which starts after the end of your education, we will calculate your maximum benefit payments based on your income at the time. If the total amount you receive from all sources exceeds our limits, we will adjust your benefit payments accordingly. For more information, please see section ‘What benefit payments can I receive?’.
The waiting period for your claim, also called the deferred period, is how long after you stop working, because of an illness or injury, before your benefit payments start. The waiting period does not apply to a claim during your education.
If you are employed in an approved dental training scheme, we will adjust the waiting period for your claim to match your employer sick pay entitlement, subject to a minimum waiting period of at least four weeks.
After the completion of your approved training, your waiting period for a claim will be 1 week but you can ask us to change it to 4, 8, 12, 13, 26 or 52 weeks. You should select a waiting period which takes into account the changes in the income from your occupation after you stop working because of an illness or injury.
If your employment status changes, for example you change from being an employee to becoming self-employed, or change jobs, you can change the waiting period of your cover to suit your new role. If your cover has a waiting period of eight weeks or more, you can reduce it to a minimum of four weeks without any further medical assessment. Please refer to the plan terms and conditions for further information.
You can ask us to increase your waiting period without the need for a medical assessment at any time.
After the fifth anniversary of your cover, if you take a career break and stop working, you can suspend your cover. This means you will not have to pay any premiums for your cover but you will not be able to make a claim.
You are entitled to 24 months break over the life of your plan. You do not have to use the full allowance at the same time and you can take multiple breaks, as long as each one lasts at least six months.
After the completion of your approved training, if you are not working and you become ill or injured and you cannot carry out at least three of our six activities of day to day living, we will still pay you benefit payments based on the lower of either the total value of your monthly cover or £1,200 per month.
If your income changes after the start of your cover and we cannot pay your claim in full, this option ensures that the total amounts you receive from us and other third parties will not fall below a predetermined level. Please refer to the plan terms and conditions for further information.
If you are admitted to hospital during your waiting period, we will pay you the lower of 1/30th of your monthly cover or £75 for every night’s stay after your first seven consecutive nights’ stay. We will continue to pay you this benefit until the earliest of the end of your stay, the end of your waiting period or we have paid the benefit for 90 nights stay. This benefit is only available if your cover has a waiting period of three weeks or more.
This option lets you increase your cover by up to 20% of the initial amount, without any medical assessment after you have had the cover and paid your premiums for six years or if you are promoted, change jobs, become a parent, increase your personal mortgage or if you marry or become a civil partner. Please refer to the plan terms and conditions for further information.
Your cover will increase automatically in line with the UK consumer price index every January after the end of your approved training. We will not increase your cover by more than 5% in any year and 150% overall. If you are receiving benefit payments, these will increase automatically as your cover increases.
After the end of your education, you will not have to pay premiums for the cover for the duration of your claim from the month after you have received benefit payments for a total of three months. We will also refund the premiums you have paid for the cover for the three months.
You can receive benefit payments for a maximum combined period of five years on all claims where you live in any of the following:
If you are not living in the UK or any of the places listed above, your benefit payments will be limited to a maximum combined period of six months.
You can make a claim if you can’t complete your education because of an illness or injury. After your education, you can make a claim when you lose income because you cannot work as a result of your illness or injury. You should check your benefit statement and plan documents to see if the condition you are suffering from is not covered. If the condition is covered, you should contact our claims team for a claim form within two weeks of stopping work if your waiting period is less than five weeks, or four weeks otherwise.
To make a claim, please contact our claims team on:
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7400 5730
Email: claims@dentistsprovident.co.uk
Address: PO Box 76944, London EC1P 1LG
To make a claim, you will need to complete and submit a claim form within 90 days of it being sent to you. To help us settle your claim quickly, you must answer all of the questions completely, accurately and to the best of your knowledge, as well as providing any information we ask for as soon as possible.
Your doctor will need to complete the medical certificate attached to the claim form and after the end of your education you need to give us evidence of your income, such as your most recent financial statements, tax return or payslips.
If you are in education at the time of your illness or injury, we will assess your claim based on your inability to complete your education successfully because of a permanent and irreversible illness or injury.
If you have completed your education and are working immediately before your illness or injury, we will assess your claim based on your inability to carry out the material and substantial duties of your occupation. In addition, your income must have fallen because of your illness or injury and you must also not be doing any other work, unless you are making a phased return.
If you were not working immediately before your illness or injury and you do not have a formally agreed start date for a new role, we will assess your claim based on your inability to independently carry out three of the following six activities of day to day living:
Your illness or injury needs to be diagnosed by a doctor who is competent in the relevant field. You must also remain under their regular care and comply with their reasonable recommendations.
We may also ask you for further evidence of your illness or injury. This can include asking you to attend a medical examination or meeting with our appointed representatives. If you do not give us the information we ask for, we may not be able to start or continue paying your claim.
After the end of your education, as part of our assessment, we will require details of your income in the three years before you stopped work, as well as details of any other similar insurance plans and income you continue to receive when you are not working. We need this information to ensure that the regular benefit payments you receive during your claim do not exceed the following limits:
We will reduce the maximum benefits we can pay by the amount of any regular benefits due under any similar insurance plans and any income you receive during the claim. If any of the income is taxable, we will only take 80% of that income into account in our calculations.
When you make a claim, we will need:
If the maximum benefits you are entitled to are lower than your cover, we will not refund you any premiums.
Before the end of your education, your benefit payment will be paid as a single lump sum payment and your plan will then end.
Once you have completed your education and started work, you will receive your regular benefit payments until the earliest of the following:
We will usually pay your benefit payments directly into your UK bank account within three days of the payment being authorised, however where we cannot do this, we will send you a cheque, normally on the same day.
If you are receiving regular benefits, your benefit payments will be paid to you monthly in arrears after the end of your waiting period. If your claim is for less than one month, you will receive your benefit payment at the end of your claim based on an appropriate fraction of your monthly cover amount.
If you were receiving regular benefits and your illness or injury reoccurs within 12 months of your return to work and you need to make a claim, we will treat the second claim as a continuation of the original claim. This means we will not apply the waiting period again and your new claim will resume on the same basis as the previous claim.
If you can only return to work in a part time or lower paid role because of your illness or injury and you have been receiving your benefit payments for at least three months, then you will continue receiving part of your benefit payments for up to a total of five years over the life of your plan.
You must not be able to work for more than 18 hours a week or 55% of the hours you worked before your illness or injury, whichever is lower. You must also remain under the care and supervision of your specialist and continue receiving proper medical treatment.
In addition to any conditions specifically excluded from your cover as a result of your medical or family history, this plan will not pay out if your illness or injury is caused by any of the following:
Before the end of your education, this plan will also not pay out if your illness or injury is caused by any mental health disorders or disorders related to fatigue.
