Aegon Personal Protection Policy

An Aegon Personal Protection policy is a protection insurance policy that was sold by Aegon and is now run by Royal London. In April 2023 Royal London entered into an agreement with Aegon to purchase its UK individual protection policies, and the High Court approved the transfer on 14 June 2024¹. If you hold one of these policies, the practical answer to the question most people ask is simple: your terms have not changed. Royal London states that if you currently hold a policy with it, there will be no changes to your policy, and your policy conditions, policy benefits, payments and any guarantees all stay the same¹.

What you have is a menu of protection benefits rather than a single product. Depending on what was chosen when the policy was taken out, it can include life protection, critical illness protection, income protection and combinations of those, and the policy conditions set out which benefits apply to your plan². The version of the conditions that governs your policy depends on when it started, which is why two people with what sounds like the same policy can have different terms.

This page explains what the policy covers, how the different versions of the conditions work, how claims and identity checks are handled, what happens if you put the policy in trust, and where to go if something goes wrong. It does not give rates or premiums: Aegon and Royal London publish today's figures on their own sites.

Aegon Personal Protection policies now sit with Royal London

The transfer is the single most important thing to understand about these policies, because it explains why paperwork, phone numbers and websites can point in two directions at once. Royal London acquired the UK individual protection business from Aegon on 4 April 2023¹. Aegon is the name in the policy conditions, where "we/our/us/Aegon" means the firm that sold the policy². That firm remains authorised, authorised since 1 December 2001, and it appears on the Bank of England's list of UK insurers authorised to carry out contracts of insurance⁶. The company, registered in Scotland as SC144517, is active⁸.

For a policyholder, none of that changes what the policy pays. What it does change is who you deal with and how. Royal London's existing customer pages for Aegon policies are the route for claims and administration, and Aegon's own support pages still carry the identity certification instructions and bereavement notification process⁹. If you are unsure which firm holds your policy record, the plan number and policy type are shown on your annual statement³.

What an Aegon Personal Protection policy covers

The policy is built from main benefits, and the conditions list which ones can be included. These are life protection, critical illness protection, life with critical illness protection, reducing critical illness protection and reducing life with critical illness protection². Income protection appears in the same family of documents, and the illness and disability claims guide covers that side of the book⁵.

Children's benefit is additional cover provided at no extra cost when you hold any of the main benefits under the policy². That is a common feature of protection menus and it is worth checking on your own schedule, because it is easy to hold cover you have forgotten about.

Waiver of premium benefit is a separate option, and it has an age limit: it does not include any period of incapacity on or after the insured person's 70th birthday². If you are approaching that age and relying on waiver to keep cover going while you cannot work, that cut-off matters.

The minimum benefit term for life protection is one year². On the Relevant Life side of the same insurer's book, the maximum benefit term is the shorter of 50 years and the number of years from the benefit start date to the day before the insured person's 75th birthday¹¹. Those two figures show how differently the same insurer treats different products, and why the schedule attached to your own policy is the only reliable guide.

If you are comparing what you hold against what is available now, the wider guides on how life insurance works and how income protection insurance works set out the building blocks.

Fracture and personal injury cover in income protection

Fracture cover is the feature most often asked about, because it was added partway through the life of these policies. Personal income protection policies taken out on or after 24 January 2022 include fracture cover, paying a lump sum for fractures of certain bones, and this is shown by policy code IP19 or above⁵. If your policy code is IP18 or lower, that addition does not apply to you.

The distinction between policy codes is the practical point. The conditions documents are versioned, and the version that applies is the one issued for your policy, not the newest one on the website. A policy written on IP12 conditions, for example, has its own rules on renewal options and guaranteed insurability that differ from later versions¹².

Personal accident style cover, which is a related but separate type of product, pays lump sums for accidental death and loss of limbs, but also for broken bones, dislocations, burns and a range of other causes that might result in hospitalisation or your inability to work¹³. Where a policy illustration is used to explain how these payouts are structured, an example might pay £10,000 for loss of a limb, £8,000 for loss of an eye and £100,000 for the death of a policyholder¹⁴. Those are illustrative figures from an official explanation of how the cover is designed, not rates for any Aegon policy.

Policy conditions: which version applies to your plan

Version control is the thing that trips people up. Aegon issued conditions for the Personal Protection policy under different codes over the years, and each code carries its own rules. The IP18 conditions, for example, provide that where premium reviews apply, they take effect on the fifth anniversary of the benefit start date and every five years after that². The same five-yearly review structure applies to critical illness protection, life with critical illness protection, reducing critical illness protection and reducing life with critical illness protection if you chose it².

The older IP12 conditions set a different deadline: the policyholder must inform the insurer of a decision 14 days before the anniversary of the benefit start date¹². Under IP12, the renewal option terminates immediately prior to the 60th birthday of the life assured, and guaranteed insurability options are not available where the life assured is older than 55 on their next birthday at the date the increased benefit amount starts¹².

The Relevant Life policy, a separate employer-provided product, sets its own guaranteed insurability limit: the option is not available if the insured person would be 55 or older on their next birthday at the date the increase would start, and an application to increase cover must be made in writing within six months of the life-changing event¹¹. The Whole of Life policy has a conversion option that requires the policy to be on a single-life basis, or on a joint-life, second-death basis where one of the insured persons has died¹⁵.

The general guides on changing your cover and guaranteed or reviewable premiums explain how these structures work across the market.

Putting a protection policy in trust

Writing a policy in trust is about who receives the money and how quickly, and it is a common step with protection policies. The process for an Aegon trust arrangement runs in four steps¹⁶:

1. Take legal advice and complete the relevant trust deed.
2. Download the Aegon general investment account application for trusts.
3. Read and complete the necessary documents.
4. Send the application with any other documents, including payment.

Where trustees invest in a general investment account, it is registered in the name of the trust, with the trustees as signatories¹⁶. A discretionary loan trust allows a client to make a loan to trustees who are then able to invest into the Aegon GIA¹⁶.

Two practical warnings apply. You can put an existing policy in trust later, but it may involve extra paperwork, and if you need help from a financial adviser or solicitor there could be a cost¹⁷. And once you put a policy in trust, you generally cannot simply change your mind: depending on the type of trust, it may be difficult to change the beneficiaries or take the policy out of the trust later¹⁷.

Aegon's own position on advice is stated plainly in the conditions:

The wider guide on writing life insurance in trust covers the mechanics.

Making a claim or telling Aegon about a death

For a claim, Aegon says you can choose to complete your claim over the phone with a dedicated claims assessor, or it will send you a form in the post⁹. It has produced a Life Protection claims guide and an Illness and Disability claims guide to explain the process and answer common questions⁹. The customer helpline is 01733 353 490³.

To report a death, you can get in touch by phone, email or by writing¹⁰. Aegon asks for:

• the person's full name, date of birth and address
• your full name, address and contact details
• the date the person died
• your relationship to the person
• any policy, plan, investor, national insurance or wrapper number

The original death certificate needs to be sent by post¹⁰. Aegon also states that it will stop all marketing communications once it is notified¹⁰.

For comparison, a death benefit plan run by another provider asks for the policyholder's original birth and death certificates, a copy of the marriage certificate where the claimant is a spouse, and a completed claims form, submitted online or by post¹⁸. Funeral Support Payment applications in Scotland ask for the caller's National Insurance number, the National Insurance number of the person who died if available, details of the funeral director, and any travel receipts or funeral bills¹⁹. The pattern across all of them is the same: identity, relationship and the death certificate are the three things that hold up a payout when they are missing.

Identity checks before a payout

Aegon states that as a financial services company it is required to comply with money laundering legislation, and that it needs original documents or certified copies to proceed with a request⁴. The bank statement it accepts must be dated within three months, must show the account number and sort code, and must show the customer's name and address⁴.

The list of people who can certify documents is long, and it includes accountants, bank or building society officials, commissioners of oaths, councillors, regulated persons and financial advisers, members of the judiciary and justices of the peace, Job Centre employees, members of financial services professional bodies, paralegals, Post Office officials, ministers of religion, MPs and devolved assembly members, doctors, nurses and dentists, serving police officers, solicitors, advocates, social workers, teachers and lecturers, embassy and consulate officers, notaries public, and government department staff⁴. Section B of the accepted identity documents includes a valid old style full UK driving licence, recent evidence of entitlement to a local authority funded benefit, tax credit, pension, educational or other grant, HMRC correspondence addressed to the customer at the stated address, a current council tax demand letter or statement, and an instrument of a court appointment⁴.

Identity checks are not unique to insurers. NS&I says it is required by law to check identity and address when someone applies to invest or registers for the online and phone service, and possibly at other times to keep records updated²⁰. A current account application usually needs ID such as a driving licence, passport, recent bills or official documents²¹.

Complaints and scam warnings

If something goes wrong with a protection policy, the Financial Ombudsman Service can look at complaints about personal accident insurance and similar cover¹⁴. In the first quarter of 2026/27 the ombudsman recorded 931 new personal pension complaints and 2,103 new personal loan complaints, which gives a sense of the volume of casework it handles across financial products²². The Pensions Ombudsman handles pension complaints and requires that a decision notification at the end of an internal dispute resolution procedure includes a statement referring the member to the Pensions Ombudsman and how it may help, with contact details provided²³.

On accessibility, the Pensions Ombudsman offers documents in large print, Braille or audio format, British Sign Language video interpretation, Relay UK, plain language correspondence and named points of contact²³. If you need policy paperwork in an alternative format, that is the standard to ask for.

Scams are the other risk. Aegon says it has had several reports of criminals impersonating it by creating fake websites and email addresses, and it warns that potential victims may be contacted by email and asked to click a link to the firm's website, using warning messages such as "unauthorised activity" or "security update" that lead to fake sites collecting personal information and security credentials²⁴. It has named example domains including aegonlimited.com, aegonlondon.com, cofundsaegon.co.uk, aegonglobalmarkets.com and aegonglobalmarkets1.com, and notes the list is not exhaustive¹⁹. Aegon's advice is that if you come across an email or website claiming to be Aegon but something does not feel right, contact it and it will investigate¹⁹.

The general anti-fraud guidance is consistent: stop and think before sharing information or money, and always check that the person is who they say they are²⁵. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme's own warning on scam emails is blunt: protect your details and do not provide any information to the person²⁶. On pension scams specifically, the guidance is never to take advice from the company that contacted you or from someone they recommend, as this may be part of the scam²⁷. Universal Credit's rule is a useful test for any unexpected message: it will never text or email asking for personal information or bank details²⁸. If you receive spam emails, the Information Commissioner's Office handles reports but states it does not respond to complaints individually²⁹.