Aviva enters into new Macmillan partnership

Aviva is pleased to announce a new partnership agreement with leading UK cancer charity Macmillan Cancer Support, which aims to help its protection customers living with cancer get access to the emotional, clinical and financial support they need. 

The charity estimates there are tens of thousands of people ‘missing’ a cancer diagnosis in the UK due to disruption caused by the pandemic and ongoing pressure on NHS services¹. Macmillan warns that it could, at best, take the NHS well into 2022 to identify those individuals whose cancer has not yet been diagnosed because of the disruption caused by Covid-19. As a result, Aviva expects to see protection claims presenting with more advanced cancers throughout 2021 and into 2022.

Recognising that customers experiencing a cancer diagnosis are likely to face even greater challenges than ever before, Aviva is committed to helping its individual and group protection customers beyond their financial claim payment.

The new partnership agreement builds on Aviva’s work with Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialists since 2017, which has provided a quicker claims process for some individual critical illness customers with cancer. In 2020, the insurer was able to pay more than 300 claims for customers with cancer within a matter of days, by simply speaking to the customer’s Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist to verify their diagnosis. ²

Given the current challenges of the pandemic, this successful claims process will continue to reduce the pressure on customers’ GPs or consultants to send medical reports. It will also give cancer nurses the ability to help more Aviva individual critical illness customers and their families get vital financial security quickly, when they need it most.

Under the new agreement, Aviva and Macmillan Cancer Support will be working on a range of new initiatives throughout the year to help support all of Aviva’s protection customers with cancer diagnoses. This support will be available to up to 7 million Aviva protection customers, whether their policy was bought directly with Aviva or through a financial adviser or partner, or is through a workplace group protection scheme.

The following initiatives are planned with Macmillan over the coming year to help the charity continue to provide vital emotional, clinical and financial support to people living with cancer:

• Aviva and Macmillan will work together to train more than 200 front-line Aviva protection claims employees to provide support to protection customers living with cancer, or who live with someone who has cancer. This will be implemented through a conversation on how Macmillan can support customers and by signposting them to the most relevant Macmillan support service. The Macmillan Support Line offers confidential support to people living with cancer and their loved ones. If they are worried about money, work or treatment, or just want to speak about whatever is on their mind, Macmillan will listen and support them.
• Learning events will be hosted by Aviva and Macmillan for financial advisers and corporate employer clients, to provide them with guidance on giving emotional support to customers who have been diagnosed with cancer and guidance on signposting them to available services through Macmillan.
• The signposting of customers, financial advisers and corporate clients to Macmillan support will be integrated throughout Aviva’s individual and group protection claims literature and claims journeys.
• Aviva and Macmillan are also working on integrating signposting to Macmillan services in Aviva’s recently launched DigiCare+ and DigiCare+ Workplace health and wellbeing apps.

Paul Brencher, Aviva Managing Director of Individual Protection, said:

“At a time when Aviva’s protection customers experiencing cancer are likely to need additional support, it is right that we do everything that we can to help them get that support. I’m delighted to be entering a new phase of our partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support that will build on the success of our individual critical illness claims process with their specialist cancer nurses.

“Together, Aviva and Macmillan helped hundreds of customers and their families to quickly access financial support from their policies in 2020, despite the impact of the pandemic on cancer diagnosis and treatment, enabling them to focus on their health and wellbeing.

“Through the partnership of our two well-known brands, our aim is to lead the industry in helping more protection customers navigate the financial challenges of living with cancer and ultimately to support them in every way that we can through the on-going development of new initiatives.”

Natasha Parker, Head of Corporate Partnerships at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:

“Our partnership with Aviva enables Macmillan to provide better support for people living with cancer, particularly those struggling with the financial impact that a cancer diagnosis can bring.

“By working together we are able to signpost Aviva customers to our clinical, financial and emotional support services whilst working closely with our Clinical Nurse Specialists to help reduce the time it takes to process an individual critical illness insurance claim. This is crucial as more than one in three people with cancer (39%) are severely financially impacted by their diagnosis. Partnerships like ours with Aviva are more important than ever before, especially at a time when people living with cancer may have more complex needs and significant financial pressures from living with cancer due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”

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_{1. Macmillan Cancer Support Research, October 2020: The Forgotten ‘C’? The impact of Covid-19 on cancer care.}

_{2. Where an individual critical illness customer diagnosed with cancer has been allocated a Macmillan Clinical Nurse Specialist through the NHS, in many cases we look to obtain the patient’s permission to speak directly to their cancer nurse to get all the information we need over the phone. This avoids having to wait for a consultant to post or email the information to us and is helping Aviva to reduce claims times from an average of 60 days to just 48 hours.}

About Macmillan Cancer Support:

At Macmillan, we give people with cancer everything we’ve got. If you’re diagnosed, your worries are our worries. We will move mountains to help you live life as fully as you can.

And we don’t stop there. We’re going all out to find ever better ways to help people with cancer, helping to bring forward the day when everyone gets life-transforming support from day one.

We’re doing whatever it takes. But without your help we can’t support everyone who needs us. To donate, volunteer, raise money or campaign with us, call 0300 1000 200 or visit macmillan.org.uk