Transparency
According to Deepak Jobanputra, deputy chief executive of Vitality Life, flexibility and transparency are key.
He explains: "Getting the right diagnosis is the essential first step to ensuring the right help can be provided. As the awareness and understanding of mental health increases, individuals will hopefully recognise they need help and be encouraged to seek that help.
"With mental health issues taking many forms, protection products need to be flexible and transparent in order for customers to feel confident that they will get the right support at the right time."
For example, Vitality provides a range of support options from preventative help such as understanding the importance of sleep, exercise and nutrition, through to full psychiatric treatment.
He adds: "We also cover and regularly pay out on income protection for mental health issues. The protection industry needs to have a louder voice in communicating the range and variety of support it can provide and how essential it can be to the recovery process."
That said, there still seems to be a higher cost associated with cover for someone who may have had a period of absence from work due to stress, for example.
Scott Cadger, head of underwriting and claims strategy at Scottish Widows, comments: "Cover can be provided if more serious conditions are controlled with treatment but may have increased premiums.
"Stress and anxiety can usually be offered on normal premium rates or with small additional loadings."
Part of the reason seems to be a tendency for mental ill health to recur. Rob Harvey, independent protection expert at Drewberry, says: "The difficulty in covering mental health is that it can manifest itself in so many ways and many conditions can be comorbid, such as the relatively high incidence of people who suffer from anxiety who also suffer from depression.
"Therefore, someone who's had one mental health condition in the past before taking out a policy may find themselves excluded for claiming for all mental health conditions going forward, even if they go on to develop a different condition.
"I also think there’s a feeling among providers that diagnosing mental health conditions is far more subjective compared to physical ailments, making claims far harder to assess."
So while it is not impossible for advisers to get protection for individual clients, the greater onus on the individual to disclose all previous conditions could be met with higher premiums.
With group schemes, while some pre-existing conditions might not be covered, meaning an individual having a recurrent bout of mental ill-health might not be able to claim, at least the related support services can kick in sooner to prevent absence in the first place.
