From Roger Edwards, product marketing manager, Scottish Provident UK In last month's magazine (Febru...
From Roger Edwards, product marketing manager, Scottish Provident UK
In last month's magazine (February 2000), you introduced a new measure for the assessment of critical illness cover, the COVERmarks.
This is a very worthwhile exercise in helping people judge the quality of what can be complex cover. However, I am concerned that your second shield, the one that measures adoption of the ABI model wordings as a minimum standard, has caused confusion in the marketplace over our product.
Scottish Provident's Self Assurance range offers cover that is at least as good as the ABI standards for all conditions, and for many conditions, our cover is wider. I was therefore disappointed that the COVERmark judges felt that they had to mark us down in this section.
Scottish Provident fully supports the ABI in its initiative and we are playing an active part in the discussions. We are also committed to communicating with clients in plain English. Unfortunately, due to time restrictions, the ABI definitions have not yet been put through the Plain English Campaign's approval process, something that we have already done with our own definitions.
Consequently, the wider cover we offer and the plain English we have used cannot always be accommodated within the ABI guidelines (although in the cases where this has resulted in us removing words, exclusions and limitations, these do comply with sections 1.24 and 1.25 of the ABI's statement of best practice).
I am sure that IFAs do not want Scottish Provident to worsen its critical illness plans by removing the wider cover, nor do I think that they would want us to remove the plain English we have introduced. So, we are currently working closely with the ABI to work out the best way we can retain our wider cover, maintain plain English and stick to the rules of the Statement of Best Practice.
