It would be a “huge shame” to lose AIG Life’s impact approach to critical illness, Protection Guru head of research, Adam Higgs, has argued.
It comes after Aviva outlined its plans for its protection business after acquiring AIG Life in September 2023 in a deal worth £460mn.
However, Higgs displayed some concern that Aviva’s plan seemed to suggest it does not intend to continue AIG Life’s impact based approach on critical illness.
“AIG has been one of the more innovative insurers in the market in recent times and their critical illness proposition is one of the few plans that actually takes a different approach to cover,” he explained.
“Back in October 2020, four impact based critical illness definitions were introduced covering degenerative neurological disorders, reduced heart function, surgery to the heart, aorta or pulmonary artery and surgery via the skull.
“These definitions were designed to cover a range of conditions traditionally included in critical illness plans but also a wider range of life impacting conditions that may not warrant a definition themselves due to their rarity.
“They were also the first insurer to include birth defect cover alongside their pregnancy complications which really set their child critical illness apart from the market.”
Higgs said it would therefore be a “huge shame” to lose the innovation AIG brought to the market.
He hopes that some of AIG’s learnings in these areas “may make it into the Aviva proposition in the future”.
A similar sentiment was shared by CoverMyBubble founder and adviser, Emma Astley, who said: “I'm absolutely gutted and shocked Aviva have not taken on part of AIG's propositions, especially the bump, child birth defects and children's cover.”
She described this as being “very frustrating for advisers who want to give their clients the best cover and premium options”.
“Aviva is so highly priced within our market and others offer so much more for young families,” she added.
Meanwhile, CIExpert director, Alan Lakey pointed out that CIExpert assisted AIG with the design of its 2018 upgrade, and described the announcement as “a tad disappointing”.
Despite this, Lakey said Aviva does have a “solid choice of plans”, adding that Jonathan Cater is a forward-thinking product manager who looks to do the right thing for customers.
“Hopefully Aviva, or maybe some other insurers, will adopt the outcome-based approach which protects placeholders against suffering from debilitating conditions that are not specifically named."
An Aviva spokesperson said: “The announcement was the first step of integrating the two propositions.
“Our initial focus is on retaining the attributes of AIG Life’s business, specifically their successful high-net-worth channel and strong partnership distribution.
“As we have said, we remain fully committed to understanding what additional learnings we can take and adapt to further strengthen our core Aviva proposition across the next stages of integration and we will continue to update the market as this progresses.
