Drewberry Insurance Reveals the UK's Riskiest Jobs for Illness and Injury

LONDON, January 26, 2011 - Drewberry Insurance has published a list of the riskiest occupations in
the UK, for which income protection insurers often refuse cover outright.
These occupations include those in the armed forces, pilots, fishermen,
police officers, security guards, delivery drivers, miners, cleaners,
construction workers and professional sportspersons.

For individuals in most occupations it is possible to take out income
protection (www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/) in order to cover
monthly earnings should time have to be taken off work due to sickness or
injury.

However, with 1.3 million* workers in 2009/10 claiming ill-health which
they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work, income
insurers draw up a list of jobs they believe to be too risky to cover under
any circumstances. In fact, as many as 152 people* were actually killed
whilst at work in 2009/10, thus highlighting the need for caution when
granting cover.

Income protection insurers will generally refuse cover to anyone who
works at heights, underground, underwater, in the air or at sea. Insurers
will also decline cover for individuals who work with explosives, heavy
machinery, chemicals or with waste materials.

Occupations that involve a high degree of manual work are also frequently
declined cover. This last exclusion stems from the fact that musculoskeletal
disorders represent the largest number of work related medical complaints,
with an estimated 572,000 UK workers* reporting this complaint in 2009/10.

Although these occupation exclusions are often placed on long-term income
protection (
www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/income-protection-cover/long-term-income-protection/ )
(which can potentially payout until retirement), it may
still be possible to gain up to 12 months worth of cover with accident and
sickness insurance. (
www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/accident-sickness-insurance/) Many
of the shorter term plans do not underwrite based on occupation so the
monthly premium charged would be the same for a labourer as an accountant,
for example.

Tom Conner, head of protection at Drewberry Insurance notes, "Whilst it
can be difficult gaining long-term cover for some occupations not all
insurers have the same exclusions or restrictions, so if cover is declined
with one insurer it doesn't mean that all insurers will have the same view.

"At the very least, the vast majority of workers can still gain cover on
a short-term payment protection type plan, with mortgage payment protection
being one such example.

"It is also worth checking whether there is a voluntary group income
protection (
www.drewberrygroupinsurance.co.uk/group-income-protection-insurance/)
scheme in place with your employer as large plans are usually uniformly
underwritten across all employees."

Notes to editors

*Source: The Labour Force Survey (LFS) - A national survey of over 50,000
households each quarter which provides information on the UK labour market.

For more information please see:
www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Source.asp?vlnk=358

For more information and a full list of occupations commonly excluded
from long-term income protection cover please see:
www.drewberryincomeprotection.co.uk/insurance-news/riskiest-jobs-sickness-injury/

(Due to the length of these URLs, it may be necessary to copy and paste
this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field. Remove the
space if one exists.)

About Drewberry Insurance

Drewberry Insurance is a trading name of Drewberry Ltd, which operates as
a whole of market insurance intermediary in the health and protection
insurance markets. Drewberry Insurance offer insurance broking services for a
range of individual and group insurance policies.

Drewberry provide personal insurance services advising on such products
as income protection insurance, individual medical insurance, family medical
insurance (www.drewberryhealthinsurance.co.uk/family-health-insurance/
) mortgage protection, life insurance, mortgage life cover (
www.drewberrymortgageinsurance.co.uk/mortgage-life-insurance/) and
critical illness cover.

Drewberry provide business insurance services advising on group medical
insurance, (www.drewberrygroupinsurance.co.uk/group-health-insurance/)
group life insurance, group income protection and group critical illness
cover.

Drewberry Ltd is an appointed representative of Chase Templeton Ltd which
is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, register
number 311612. Registered address: Vantage House, 1 Weir Road, London, SW19
8UX.

    For further information please contact:

    Andrew Jenkinson
    Drewberry Ltd
    Vantage House
    1 Weir Road
    London
    SW19 8UX
    +44(0)20-8432-7333
    www.drewberryltd.com
    enquiries@drewberryltd.com

For further information please contact: Andrew Jenkinson, Drewberry Ltd, Vantage House, 1 Weir Road, London, SW19 8UX, +44(0)20-8432-7333, enquiries at drewberryltd.com