Guardian’s new critical illness plans have gone live for advisers and their clients today (15 June).
The provider’s two new core covers – Critical Illness Essentials and Combined Life and Critical Illness Essentials build on Life Essentials, introduced in 2024 to support households that need more affordable cover.
The launch coincides with a number of updates to policy terms and conditions.
The insurer said the products were designed for more price-conscious clients who do not need, want, or cannot afford all the enhanced features within its protection range.
The covers are now available on The Protection Platform from UnderwriteMe, IPipeline’s SolutionBuilder and comparison service, Iress’ The Exchange and Novium. They are also available to compare on CIExpert, Protection Guru and Defaqto.
The insurer worked alongside advisers including from L&C Mortgages to develop the product.
Terms and conditions update
Guardian also unveiled updates to its policy terms and conditions to help policyholders better understand their cover and see clearly what they can claim for.
It has split its policy terms and conditions, and key facts into eight separate versions, one for each type of cover within its menu. Instead of receiving a single document containing all covers, policyholders will now only receive information that’s relevant to their policy.
This builds on the improvements Guardian made earlier this year to its MyGuardian policyholder dashboard and adviser dashboards.
Survival period and policy updates
In addition, Guardian has reduced the ‘survival period’ on critical illness protection and children’s critical illness protection from 14 days to 10 days for new policyholders. This means policyholders need to survive for a shorter period after their critical illness diagnosis to be eligible for a payout, aligning with their new Critical Illness Essentials.
Life Protection and Combined Life and Critical Illness Protection have also been updated so that no claim will be paid if death is due to suicide or intentional self-inflicted injury within the first 12 months of the policy for new policyholders. This is the same as Life Essentials and Combined Life and Critical Illness Essentials and brings Guardian in line with standard market practice.
And changes have been made to seven definitions across Critical Illness Protection, Combined Life and Critical Illness Protection and Children’s Critical Illness Protection to provide clearer descriptions of exactly what is covered. With Guardian’s cover upgrade promise, all existing policyholders benefit from improved definitions at no extra cost.
Chloe Davies, head of protection distribution at L&C Mortgages, said: “It’s been a real pleasure to get to work alongside Guardian to help shape what we then take out to clients.
“This sort of collaboration is what’s needed in our market to help more people access the level of protection they need. It’s great to see a provider genuinely listening to advisers and acting on it.
“The new split policy terms and conditions are just another way Guardian is going above and beyond to make life easier not only for us, but for our clients too.”
‘Invigorate’ the market
CIExpert founder and director Alan Lakey said the insurer was continuing to “invigorate” the critical illness market with its new plan.
“It’s designed for the discerning client who is unable to afford fully comprehensive cover but still aspires to high quality coverage,” he said.
“The inclusion of 34 conditions that pay out in full plus four additional payment conditions for less advanced cancer of the breast, prostate, ovary and testicles makes it stand out in the market.
“The additional payment conditions pay the lower of £30,000 or 30% of the sum insured, and advisers should note that there are nine conditions which pay out if added to the NHS waiting list for surgical treatment.”
Hilary Banks, chief commercial officer at Guardian, (pictured) said: “Often, lower-cost cover means cutting corners on quality or service. We didn’t think that was good enough.
“By working with advisers to design our new covers and listening to what they and their clients need, we’ve built Critical Illness Essentials to deliver quality cover with the fast, dependable support that Guardian is known for, at a more accessible price point.”