Legal & Generallink with Roodlane Medical to Enhance Group Income Protection Service

KWD 119 – 3 December 2007

LEGAL & GENERALLINK WITH ROODLANE MEDICAL TO ENHANCE GROUP INCOME PROTECTION SERVICE

Legal & General has linked with Roodlane Medicalto offer an improved holistic approach to absence management for our group income protection customers by integrating sickness absence reporting with the existing occupational health case management.

Employee absence is estimated to cost employers over £13billion per year, an average of £537per employee in direct costs*. Once indirect costs such as management time and disruption are also factored into the equation then the true costs are probably higher. Although staff absence has a major impact to a company’s bottom line, recording of staff absence by employers is still often done on a manual basis, which is expensive and not always accurate.

Roodlane Medical’s absence tracking system, Inform, will integrate with the existingpro-active benefit management we provide our group income protection customers. This means that with the speedier supply of more accurate staff absence information, the most effective and efficient approach to managing absence maybe put in place so improving an employees possible chance of a full recovery back to work.

The real time reporting of staff absence enables a faster assessment to be made on whether management or medical intervention is most appropriate, plus freeing up valuable management time.

Dr John Delfosse, Company Medical Officer for Legal & General’s Group Protection business added: “It is well established and accepted that early intervention and a holistic approach, particularly for those individuals suffering from psychological and/or physical conditions, can significantly increase their chance of a successful return to work. And the new integrated service will mean that there is a greater chance of success!”

Inform is a call-centre based absence reporting system with real time notification to the appropriate manager as well as providing essential reporting to Human Resources departments.

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The system includes notification of ‘red flag’ conditions where there is a high risk of prolonged absence, staff who have been absent for over 10 days, and those with high Bradford scores**.In addition, the system is able to notify Health & Safety representatives of work related and ergonomic issues. For example, conditions such as stress, anxiety, depression and musculo-skeletal problems which could be work related,trigger a notification to the in-house or external occupational health provider so that appropriate support and treatment can be made available without delay. Plus, an email is automatically generated to the employer reminding them to complete an Absence Notification Form, which we require after an employee is absent for four weeks. This makesthe initial claims notification process smoother for employers.

Vanessa Sallows, Benefits Director for Legal & General’s group protection business commented, “By combining the absence reporting together with our existing group income protection benefits we hope to improve our current success rate for our customers in getting their employees back to work. We have already seen a significant drop in the time that employers notify us of staff absence since the introduction of our early notification bonus scheme. This innovation has resulted in the delay before we are notified of a staff absence falling from an average of close to 20 weeks in 2005 to under 13 weeks so far this year***.

In addition, the earlier intervention that this new initiative with Roodlane Medical will bring means that we should also see an improvement in our already good success rate in helping employees suffering from anxiety and depression back to work. Working in partnership with our specialists cognitive behavioural therapy provider, CBT services and Medigold Health Consultancy, we are achieving over a 50% success rate at getting employees suffering from psychological conditions back to work within a year.

Group Protection has a key role inworking with employers and their advisers to help improve staff absence and the costs to businesses. This innovationwith Roodlane Medical is an affordable solution for businesses and by managingboth short and long-term staff absences it can importantly help control those overall costs.”

Legal & General is offering the Inform service to all customers. However, for those customers who are eligible for the Early Notification Bonus (ENB) scheme and providedetails of 80% or more of all absences where an employee is likely to be off work for over four weeks, by the sixth week of absence, then most if not all of the cost of the absence reporting service will be refunded by Legal & General.

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Legal & General’s ENB scheme was introduced in January 2006 and is available to customers with schemes with more than 500 employees. Provided they notify us of at least 80% of their staff absences by week six, they qualify for a cash refund of 5% of the annual premium at the end of the scheme year.

In addition to the new group income protection product, Progressive, launched earlier this year,Legal & General offers a range of group protection cover and support services. Advisers wanting more details of these other products and services may contact their normal Legal & General contact or call 01737 376140. Alternatively, advisers may email . Ends

Further information (journalists only):

Berni Ryan

PR Manager, Legal & General

01737 375369/ 07788 926790

Notes to editors

Sources: * 175 million working days were lost in 2006, costing firms £13.4 billion according to the CBI’s annual absence and labour turnover survey 2007. This works out as an average of £537 per employee in direct costs for replacing staff and lost production. Source of CBI stats;

Indirect costs

Health and safety executive (HSE)-

** The Bradford scores are a way of identifying individuals with serious absence and patterns of absence worthy of further investigation. It helps highlight causes for concern and often is one of the first steps in an attendance procedure.

*** Average notification figure from 2003 to 30 September 2007.

Swiss Re Group Watch report issued May 2007.

1. Photo of Vanessa Swallows is available on request.
2. The Roodlane Medical Limited is one of largest independently run private health care practices in the City of London and South East for more information visit,
3. Legal & General is a leading individual protection provider (Source: Swiss re protection report 2006) with a commitment to excellent customer service.
4. The information contained in Legal & General's press release is intended solely for journalists and should not be used by consumers to make financial decisions.
5. Legal & General Assurance Society Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
6. Issued by Legal & General Assurance Society Limited. Registered in England No 166055. Registered office: One Coleman Street, LondonEC2R 5AA.