While advertising protection is challenging, it benefits all parties and helps to keep protection on people’s minds.
Alan Knowles, of Cura Insurance, is pleased that there has been more focus on income protection in 2015.
He said: “We are now coming across more clients who have heard of income protection and have some understanding of what it is. This shows more client awareness and hopefully indicates that advisers are discussing the benefits of income protection more.
“It has also been good to see the publicity and marketing coming from Vitality in general in protection. They are adding a new dynamic to the industry which I believe is having a positive impact.”
Critical illness reversal
It has been another year of change for the critical illness market, with insurers updating and improving their products and definitions.
But more notably, we have seen the continued reversal of the trend to add ever greater numbers of conditions to policies, instead seeing them combined and simplified to increase customer understanding and the number of claims paid.
Alan Lakey, founder of CI Expert, said: “Insurers seem to be moving away from the pile it high attitude to conditions and are instead amalgamating them into broader definitions, such as Old Mutual and Scottish Widows placing five separate conditions under one Parkinson Syndrome heading.”
Barry Pappin, at Vita, commented: “The drive to the quality of definitions rather than quantity of conditions is the priority for most providers now, which aligns with the needs of advisers and their clients.
“This is where tools such as CI Expert have proven to be essential in researching the critical illness market and providing better outcomes for clients.”
The rise of technology
2015 has seen research tools launched or cemented into the protection market for the benefit of advisers, such as CI Expert and F&TRC’s product ratings, with many advisers stating that they form an essential part of the advice process.
We’ve also seen insurers simplify and improve their online systems to make business easier to place with them.
It has also been an extremely busy year in the protection arena with some positive changes, said LightBlue’s Mr Groves, “Including the simplified online system that Royal London has produced that will supersede the two separate platforms of Scottish Provident and Bright Grey.”
Robert Harvey, at Drewberry, commented that: “Aviva’s online portal for policyholders (MyAviva); and efforts by providers like L&G to push electronic medical reports have made a difference.
“It has been a year of insurers innovating and bringing to market a range of different technology role outs, all of which help the consumer and can hopefully be built upon in 2016.”
Mr Pappin at Vita added: “The welcome introduction of F&TRC’s Quality Analyser has been a highlight of 2015. We’ve all become numb to slick marketing so independent tools that comprehensively analyse the products on offer across the whole market make a real difference.”
