Industry: Provider hopes to snare new business with online proposition
The battle for a share of the protection market continues unabated following Standard Life's entry into the sector. After six months field-testing its proposition with 20 IFA firms, including LifeSearch and Hargreaves, the provider has launched an online business system called Protection Online.
Its Lifetime Protection series of products available online includes term assurance, accelerated guaranteed critical illness (CI), mortgage protection and waiver. Commission is offered at 5% for online quotes and 15% for online submissions. Standalone CI and income protection (IP) products are not available.
Discussing the launch, Mick James, marketing manager at Standard Life said: "Previously, Standard Life has not had an online proposition, which has put us at a competitive disadvantage. However, we have been watching our competitors and surveying the good parts of each online offering so that when we came to market, we would be ahead of the game."
James added that further product development is underway and that the firm is working with its partner provider, Unum, to develop an online service for IP, which it plans to bring to market in Q3. It has no immediate plans to introduce standalone CI however.
"Standalone critical illness is not available, but we will enter the debate going forward. Our hope is to introduce an improved income protection offering - one that will address the issues currently surrounding critical illness products," he said.
The provider has also spent the last six months rebroking its reinsurance deals. RGA Re has been enlisted for its level term assurance business, Gen Re will handle its mortgage protection offering, while GE Frankona Re will supply its CI capacity.
Standard Life has also improved its back-office capabilities and has doubled the size of its underwriting team to approximately 50 staff.
With a current market share of 3-4%, Standard Life's aim is to grow its share in the market, by initially targeting customers aged between 28 and 38.
"The aim is that by getting clean business online, we can build up business slowly. The market has seen some new entrants have issues surrounding flow and back office systems, we want to make sure we get this right," he said.
