Adding policies under this banner to your employee benefits’ package helps you provide a highly valued financial lifeline to your employees, and support their families, when they’re most in need of a helping hand.

By promoting a supportive, stable and healthy, working environment, group risk policies can help your business in many ways, including supporting staff throughout a serious illness and helping employees return to work.

Group income protection

Group income protection policies have a joint benefit of helping protect the income of your employees during injury or illness, including associated costs, as well as support employers at the same time.

For employers these policies provide financial support by enabling you to continue covering employee benefits, including salary, national insurance and pension contributions.

They also help employees get back to work as quickly as possible, or help them to stay in the workplace for as long as possible with practical support and rehabilitation programmes.

Group critical illness cover

If an employee is diagnosed with an illness, or they need an operation, for a condition that’s classed as being critical (in accordance with your policy’s terms) then group critical illness cover will provide your employees with financial support.

This support is provided in a lump sum payment to cover costs that are commonly incurred during, or result from, a critical illness, and or, operation.

Although it can be used at the discretion of the employee, it’s intended to cover the likes of mortgage costs while the policyholder is unable to work and adapting facilities in the home.

Commonly covered operations and illnesses include (but are not exclusive of) the following: Cardiac arrest, heart valve replacement or repair, major organ failure or transplant, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Group life assurance

Group life assurance schemes are designed to help following loss of life.

During such difficult and challenging times, life assurance policies are able to provide both financial and emotional support to those named as the policyholder’s beneficiaries.

Following a bereavement, financial support will be provided to loved ones of the employee by employers with a tax free, lump sum.

Counselling, as well as other forms of emotional support, may also be provided to further help beneficiaries, as well as colleagues, who may also have been adversely affected by the death of the employee.

Group death in service

Similar to group life assurance, group death in service schemes also provide financial support to employee beneficiaries in the wake of loss of life.

However, the way in which they differ from group life assurance policies, is that group death in service schemes usually provide an income to the beneficiaries of the deceased which is based on a percentage of the employee’s salary.

The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate employee benefits.