Debbie Morey, compensation and benefits manager, says much of the reason for this is historical, with critical illness and life assurance traditionally coming under the business’s group personal pension scheme, now provided by Aegon.
Working alongside its consultancy firm Lorica Employee Benefits, DPD recently revisited this set-up, largely because pensions auto-enrolment is looming.
Under the new arrangement, only existing scheme members will continue to receive critical illness, and staff that had not joined the group pension plan were given a final chance to do so: they would receive life assurance but not critical illness.
“Those that decided not to join when we staged went into The People’s Pension scheme, and we don’t offer life assurance to those,” says Morey. “Only new starters now get the option of the Aegon scheme with the life assurance.”
DPD is also likely to review its level of life assurance this year. “Anyone who is under 30 gets eight times their salary, and anyone between 30 and 50 gets six times,” she says. “We may decide to put everybody on the same level.
