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With the ongoing situation in the Middle East & Eastern Med, we’re operating as normal. We remind our members that they have access to safety and security advice or help via Solace Secure. More information available on Facebook & LinkedIn.
The information in this post refers to changes we’re making to insurance policies starting or renewing in 2026. See last year’s post for information on the changes we made to policies starting or renewing in 2025. See our UAE post for information on the changes we made to policies in the UAE starting or renewing on or after June 2025.
We’re pleased to share with you the changes we’re making to insurance policies starting or renewing in 2026.
Headline changes include:
These changes will take effect for all existing members at their renewal date between 01 January 2026 and 31 December 2026 (inclusive), and for all new policies with a start date on or after 01 January 2026. Please note these changes do not apply to policies in the UAE or onshore policies in Indonesia.
For protection policies (both the new products and our legacy products), we’re making only minor changes to the policy wordings. There are no changes to benefits or premiums.
We have not changed any benefits, limits, or exclusions in our 2026 health insurance product.
In this year’s product review, we have focused on making William Russell easier to do business with, our new membership proposition, and our pricing model.
In recent years, our pricing model has become increasingly sophisticated. Premium inflation is not one-size-fits-all; it depends on many factors, which we explore in our guide to renewal premium calculations.
In 2026, most policyholders will experience a renewal premium increase in the range of 10-20%, with the average around 14%.
We understand that these increases are considerable, and we share your concerns and the wider concerns of the market about the ongoing, general affordability of insurance premiums. That said, our pricing model is data-driven, reflecting medical inflation and claims experience in each country. Our overriding commitment is to keep increases fair, and our renewals team is on hand to discuss specific cases with you.
Our focus for 2026—We’ve developed keener pricing for our key target segment: individuals, families, and SME groups in Southern & Eastern Europe, SE Asia , and across Africa.
Health pricing for groups—We’ve improved the way we price groups on our health insurance product, making us more competitive.
Health pricing for families—We’ve improved the way we price families on our individual and group health insurance products, with greater discounts for families with 2+ children.
Age curve—We’ve worked on our premium age curve for our health insurance product, meaning increases between ages will be smoother.
Lifetime discounts—There are no changes to our lifetime discounts in 2026.
MHD for smaller groups—We’re keen on groups with 3-50 employees, but—until now—we haven’t offered an MHD option for groups at the smaller end of that scale. Feedback from brokers indicated a need for more flexible underwriting terms—particularly in Africa, parts of SE Asia, and Europe. So from 2026, we will consider MHD for groups with 5-9 employees. While a couple of conditions apply, we’re excited to bring our underwriting terms in line with the market.
Simplified documentation—We’ve revamped our insurance documents to make things clearer and easier for you and your clients. These include some structural changes to the layout of the plan agreements, improvements to our fulfilment documents (e.g., certificates of insurance, acceptance invitations), and we’ve reduced the number of application forms.
Online application tool—Over the past few months, we’ve piloted an online application tool for individuals and families applying directly for their health insurance policy. It’s quicker for applicants, eliminates the need for PDF forms, and—crucially—reduces the time it takes us to issue terms to the applicant. We’ll be rolling out the online application tool for brokered applicants over the coming weeks.
Broker portal—We’re very close to launching a portal for brokers with two use cases. Firstly, you can generate and compare side-by-side quotes for our individual health insurance products. Secondly, you can accept a quote illustration and initiate an online application for your individual clients.
Continued medical underwriting—We are changing our name for our continued personal medical exclusions underwriting type (also known as CPME or ‘switch’ underwriting). We will now refer to this underwriting type simply as continued medical underwriting.
Online application tool —Individuals and families applying for a health insurance policy directly with us, can now use our online application tool. It’s quicker for applicants and reduces the time it takes us to issue terms.
We have designed a new membership proposition, named ‘Elevate‘, to complement our products and services. Designed to help people stay safe and healthy and make the most of life abroad, we’re offering Elevate to our entire population of members—at no additional cost.
Elevate comprises 4 different value-added services, provisioned by 3 digital platforms:
New members with policies starting in 2026 have access to Elevate from inception. We will make Elevate available to existing members from their renewal date in 2026, starting 01 January.
We’ll provide more information about Elevate in early December.
Health members
Life & income protection members
We are changing our bank accounts for premium collection. With immediate effect, our invoices will carry our new bank details.We’re keeping our old bank accounts active through 2026, and we’ll follow up with any policyholders making payments to them so they’re aware of our new bank account details for future payments.This change does not affect policyholders paying by direct debit or credit card.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, which authorises and regulates William Russell, requires us to show the policyholder’s current premium alongside their new, renewal premium. The FCA also requires us to invite the policyholder to ‘shop around’ if they have been our member for a certain number of years—even if the policyholder has an insurance broker or intermediary.
This feature of the renewal invitation has certainly prompted negative feedback from our brokers in the past. Unfortunately, it is a regulatory requirement intended to benefit consumers.
For reasons of medical confidentially, a change in French law (which governs our insurer, Allianz Partners) requires insurance providers to provide separate medical questionnaires for each adult application on a health insurance policy.
In our view, the requirement makes sense from a privacy perspective; but we understand that separate PDF application forms for every dependant over the age of 18 makes for a sub-optimal, form-filled experience. Instead, we have revamped our old application form. It now carries a declaration that asks each adult dependant to sign an authorisation, giving their agreement to share their personal and sensitive medical data with other adult applicants on the policy. We feel that this is the best way to accommodate the legal requirement.
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