Income Protection

The challenge for income protection continues. The current focus for most providers is currently on the legislative issues of Solvency II, RDR and gender neutral pricing. These issues are large and distracting from product development.

A panel debate at the recent COVER Forum discussed medical disclosure application forms, with some arguing tele-underwriting was the answer while others said universal forms would beat the ever-lengthening applications. How much of a problem are existing...

Zurich will be investing significantly in technology next year as part of a strategy to serve the mass market more.

LV= has announced how it will manage amendments to protection policies after the EU gender directive deadline.

PROTECTION WATCH

An underwriting outsourcing company will be publishing updates on the number of female and male policies sold in the run up to the gender-neutral deadline and beyond.

Income protection needs to strip out the state benefits element if the product is to move upwards, a consultancy firm has stated.

LV= has increased its income protection benefit guarantee and introduced a high guaranteed insurability (GIO) option.

The Income Protection Task Force has planned to launch a consumer charter as part of a three-point plan for income protection.

So we heard from British Friendly recently that income protection (IP) sales are not benefiting from the gender change opportunity. Advisers have reported similar, but that life is tracking the opposite trend.