Consumers want simple financial products to provide a standard limited level of coverage allowing easy understanding and comparison, new research has found.
The ABI research found that evaluating which products provide better value for money was the key problem customers had faced when purchasing financial services in the past.
However, encouragingly for the market, respondents reported buying protection products had produced the lowest level of problems.
They also emphatically rejected the possibility of having a wider level of coverage but at greater cost.
As part of its quarterly consumer research the ABI asked 2,561 adults about the possibility of introducing simple financial products.
Almost half (48%) of those addressing the qualities simple products should posses, said a standard (but limited) level of coverage among products to aid comparison was most important to them.
Just over a third (36%) wanted easier to understand terms, with the resultant increase in paperwork, while only 15% said very comprehensive coverage with few exclusions but a likely higher cost was the key for them.
These results supported other questions asked by the Association.
Based on previous buying experience, most people said that not being able to work out which products provided the best value for money (0.7 score out of 1.0) was their greatest concern when choosing.
This was followed by not being able to compare different product features (0.58) and confusion over the choices available (0.56).
Very few felt they lacked the confidence to make a decision (0.16).
And when asked which products had most frequently raised these problems, pensions (37%) and investment products (23%) were the most commonly mentioned while four protection products were the least problematic.
