CIExpert’s decision to introduce Guardian’s new income protection (IP) plan on its Insight Zone is “just the start of the journey” to replicating its current review service for critical illness products, the firm revealed.
CIExpert director Alan Lakey (pictured) told Health & Protection the firm had made the move into income protection six months earlier than originally planned.
And Lakey adding he had been “surprised” by the level of interest from insurers to support and join its move to adopt income protection, adding he anticipates announcing some more insurers in coming months.
Speaking to Health & Protection about the launch, Lakey said it had been a “long-standing” objective for CIExpert to support income protection products from all insurers using the “same combination of an easily understood overview combined with in-depth analysis”.
“This is just the start of our journey as we look to support advisers and their clients with arguably the most important protection product of all,” he added.
Lakey’s comments followed the announcement that it is now including income protection on its Insight Zone, with Guardian debuting its recently launched product.
Advisers using Insight Zone will be provided with access to key information on all aspects of income protection policies in a visual, interactive and educational way, the firm added.
The Insight Zone currently covers critical illness and life policies but will now be extended with a branch dedicated to income protection.
The comparison service has also developed a maximum benefit tool to enable advisers to visually compare the levels of coverage available between plans and more easily illustrate the options for their clients.
Brought forward six months
In terms of plans of adding more providers, Lakey said the firm would like to support the full range of IP products from all insurers within its new Insight Zones as quickly as it can.
“We have been surprised by the level of interest from Insurers to support and join our move to adopt IP and we anticipate announcing some more insurers in the coming months,” Lakey continued.
“Many of the leading IP insurers have already indicated a desire to participate.”
Lakey added the launch had been brought forward by six months or so.
“We have been extremely busy with a number of recent product launches and so we had planned to make this move in Q4 of this year,” he said.
“However the opportunity to link with Guardian’s entry into the market felt like a great way to stimulate interest in IP products in the market.
“Income protection is an important product that still doesn’t have the level of sales that it merits and so we feel we can utilise a lot of the technology we have developed to provide advisers the level of support that they need.”