Bulletin 06, 2007
Round up
6 – the number of rate changes since the last bulletin (Bright Grey, Liverpool Victoria, Friends Provident – twice, Legal & General and Scottish Provident)
12% - the number of work absences made up by ‘sickies’ according to research from the CBI
16 – the number of health events in May, including World Asthma Day and Cancer Prevention Week
17 – the consecutive number of months that house prices have risen in the UK, according to RICS
673 – the number of life insurance and protection applications received by LifeSearch last week (a new record)
Journalist competition winner
Last month we asked you to name the best or funniest film title that best represents the life insurance and protection industry. We had some good suggestions including Indecent Proposal, Disclosure, Apocalypse Now, Double Indemnity, The Abyss, Death Becomes Her, Die Hard and True Lies.
But the winner is… Groundhog Day – ‘because the life insurance industry has been talking about the same things for ten years’. Fair comment, and congratulations to Emily Perryman who wins a case of wine!
This month’s competition asks ‘How many life insurance and protection applications will LifeSearch receive during the calendar month of April?’
Our record week above provides grounds for a decent guess and the closest entry wins an iPod shuffle and £30 HMV vouchers.
Watchdog and declined critical illness claims
This week’s Watchdog programme featured two more declined claims for critical illness cover. We have sympathy for both, although if consumers do not tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, there is always a chance that claims will not be paid.
Thankfully, and rightly, one of the claims was eventually paid. However, the programme has raised the question of whether or not positive changes to the terms and conditions of critical illness policies, such as the number of conditions covered, should be back-dated or not – and whether or not it is feasible to back-date only the positive changes, and not the negative ones.
Several years ago, Swiss Life added 7 new conditions to their critical illness policy and applied the changes retrospectively; pleasing both advisers and clients as such behaviour further evidences a sound recommendation. Sadly, Swiss Life is no longer in the market for new business. However, of the many changes made to critical illness policies in recent months, no companies have applied any of the new conditions retrospectively, which is a sign of the value that price now holds in this market.
In our view, the new conditions are unlikely to bring a high number of critical illness claims, and rather than kick-starting a critical illness price war by cutting premiums insurers could have applied these positive changes to existing customers instead.
2006 Industry sales figures
- Whole of Life – down 4.8%
- Mortgage related term life assurance – down 6%
- Non-mortgage term life assurance – up 10.4%
- Income Protection – up 6.9%
- Stand Alone Critical Illness Cover – up 8.5%
- Accelerated Critical Illness Cover (including life cover) – down 4.7%
(Source: ABI / HealthCare Insurance Report)
Comments of the week
‘Being the price leader is no longer enough. Financial services is about trust, confidence and doing the right thing by the customer.’
Gev Lynott,
Director of ASDA Financial Services
Quote taken from this month’s COVER magazine
‘It was a relief to come across such a straight-forward and efficient service after spending endless fruitless hours trying to research life insurance and income protection online for myself.’
LifeSearch client
Quote taken from this week’s feedback form of the week
Heroes of the week
Pension Term Assurance Providers
Despite yesterday’s unexpected, but welcome, announcement from the Treasury on Pension Term Assurance pipeline cases, a general ‘thank you’ from LifeSearch and our customers goes to the Pension Term Assurance providers who helped us get our Pension Term Assurance cases on the books before the April deadline.
We had more than a thousand cases to rush through, and apart from the odd frustrating case, we were well supported with many life insurance providers taking a proactive stance to make sure as many cases were sorted before the deadline as possible.
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