News - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

To mark the start of national Breast Cancer Awareness month Forces Financial has announced the Personal Accident insurance policy it offers military personnel and their dependents will now include female cancer cover, providing a £3,500 benefit payable on the diagnosis of cancer of specified female organs.

Whilst it is generally understood that the pricing of some products such as Motor and Life Insurance already take account of gender, other policy premiums do not reflect the differing risks and requirements of men and women in the same way. Forces Financial believes that specialist insurance products designed for the military should evolve in order to meet not only changing operational requirements, but to also fairly represent the requirements and risks posed by the different sexes in both the premiums and benefits offered. Forces Financial’s MD, Al Voice explains;

‘Realising the models for many military insurance policies were designed before women were widely accepted into the Forces we decided to conduct a review of Forces Financial’s products, taking into account both the number of women now serving and the latest claims statistics.

We started with our Personal Accident insurance policy, where we found that women are making fewer claims on their policies than men, but nationally we know that women are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than men are to experience prostate cancer. So here was an opening to build in a feature with the potential to address any imbalance for the benefit of our female customers.’

‘I envisage there will be further opportunities to provide enhanced benefits for our customers to meet their specific requirements by using this method to differentiate and price more accurately according to risk. Ultimately a soldier is a soldier regardless of sex. But they are also individuals, and to design bespoke insurance policies for each and everyone is not currently feasible, but developments with this product mark the start of the process.’

A team of Forces Financial staff raised funds for Breast Cancer Campaign by dancing their way to fitness in the annual Pink Aerobics event in Regents Park, London on the 27 September. In total the team has raised £1,000 so far for the charity.

For more information on Forces Financial’s Personal Accident Insurance and female cancer cover:

Call 00800 11 22 33 04 free from the UK and Germany, +44 1993 862046 from the rest of the world