Drewberry Insurance Reveals the UK's Riskiest Jobs for Illness and Injury

LONDON, January 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Drewberry Insurance has published a list of the riskiest occupations in the UK, for which income protection insurers often refuse cover outright. These occupations include those in the armed forces, pilots, fishermen, police officers, security guards, delivery drivers, miners, cleaners, construction workers and professional sportspersons.

For individuals in most occupations it is possible to take out income protection (http://www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/) in order to cover monthly earnings should time have to be taken off work due to sickness or injury.

However, with 1.3 million* workers in 2009/10 claiming ill-health which they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work, income insurers draw up a list of jobs they believe to be too risky to cover under any circumstances. In fact, as many as 152 people* were actually killed whilst at work in 2009/10, thus highlighting the need for caution when granting cover.

Income protection insurers will generally refuse cover to anyone who works at heights, underground, underwater, in the air or at sea. Insurers will also decline cover for individuals who work with explosives, heavy machinery, chemicals or with waste materials.

Occupations that involve a high degree of manual work are also frequently declined cover. This last exclusion stems from the fact that musculoskeletal disorders represent the largest number of work related medical complaints, with an estimated 572,000 UK workers* reporting this complaint in 2009/10.

Although these occupation exclusions are often placed on long-term income protection ( http://www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/income-protection-cover/long-term-income-protection/ ) (which can potentially payout until retirement), it may still be possible to gain up to 12 months worth of cover with accident and sickness insurance. ( http://www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/accident-sickness-insurance/) Many of the shorter term plans do not underwrite based on occupation so the monthly premium charged would be the same for a labourer as an accountant, for example.

Tom Conner, head of protection at Drewberry Insurance notes, "Whilst it can be difficult gaining long-term cover for some occupations not all insurers have the same exclusions or restrictions, so if cover is declined with one insurer it doesn't mean that all insurers will have the same view.

"At the very least, the vast majority of workers can still gain cover on a short-term payment protection type plan, with mortgage payment protection being one such example.

"It is also worth checking whether there is a voluntary group income protection ( http://www.drewberrygroupinsurance.co.uk/group-income-protection-insurance/) scheme in place with your employer as large plans are usually uniformly underwritten across all employees."

Notes to editors

*Source: The Labour Force Survey (LFS) - A national survey of over 50,000 households each quarter which provides information on the UK labour market.

For more information please see: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Source.asp?vlnk=358

For more information and a full list of occupations commonly excluded from long-term income protection cover please see: http://www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/insurance-news/riskiest-jobs-sickness-injury/

(Due to the length of these URLs, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field. Remove the space if one exists.)

About Drewberry Insurance

Drewberry Insurance is a trading name of Drewberry Ltd, which operates as a whole of market insurance intermediary in the health and protection insurance markets. Drewberry Insurance offer insurance broking services for a range of individual and group insurance policies.

Drewberry provide personal insurance services advising on such products as income protection insurance, individual medical insurance, family medical insurance (http://www.drewberryhealthinsurance.co.uk/family-health-insurance/ ) mortgage protection, life insurance, mortgage life cover ( http://www.drewberrymortgageinsurance.co.uk/mortgage-life-insurance/) and critical illness cover.

Drewberry provide business insurance services advising on group medical insurance, (http://www.drewberrygroupinsurance.co.uk/group-health-insurance/) group life insurance, group income protection and group critical illness cover.

Drewberry Ltd is an appointed representative of Chase Templeton Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, register number 311612. Registered address: Vantage House, 1 Weir Road, London, SW19 8UX.

    
    For further information please contact:

    Andrew Jenkinson
    Drewberry Ltd
    Vantage House
    1 Weir Road
    London
    SW19 8UX
    +44(0)20-8432-7333
    http://www.drewberryltd.com
    enquiries@drewberryltd.com