Aviva will cover the increase in national insurance and health and social care levy for its group income protection clients. The business will insure both existing policies, where the policy insures NICs, as well as new group income protection policies from April 6 this year.
The changes will apply automatically when NICs are insured, so employers and employee benefits consultants will not need to take any action.
From April 6 this year NICs will increase by 1.25 percentage points for a year.
Then, on April 6, 2023, NICs will revert back to their previous rate and a new health and social care levy of 1.25 percent will be introduced.
Jason Ellis, sales director, of group protection at Aviva said: “By covering the increase in NICs and the levy announced by the government to pay for health and social care funding, we hope to provide reassurance and certainty to our group income protection clients who insure NICs, as the changes come into effect.”
The long-awaited social care reform plans were announced in September last year, and included a cap on the cost paid by any one person for social care in their lifetime, which will be set at £86,000 for people entering care from October 2023.
Social care reform has been on Whitehall’s to-do list for some time, with successive governments promising to address the issue only to subsequently fail to do so.
This prime minister too has promised repeatedly to ‘fix’ the social care system and the 2019 Conservative party manifesto promised to address the issue.
