Legal & General has told Health & Protection it remains committed to the group critical illness (CI) market despite telling an adviser it was temporarily halting all quoting “as [a] company” for the product.
In the message sent to a group risk adviser earlier this month, the insurer cited needing to restore its service levels and not having competitive rates as the key reasons for “closing CIC requests”.
It is the latest step in a difficult year for L&G’s group critical illness product.
In February, Health & Protection exclusively revealed L&G had significantly cut back on issuing quotes for group CI schemes.
At the time the insurer told Health & Protection it was not exiting the group critical illness market but did not say how long the new approach would be in place.
‘Closing CIC requests’
This latest issue reinforces the unsettled situation at the insurer, though it is adamant it has not withdrawn from the market completely despite telling the adviser it had done so.
The reassurance follows a communication, seen by Health & Protection, to a group risk adviser following a quote enquiry, which it said: “L&G is not currently looking to quote for CIC policies as a company temporarily”.
“Our quote volumes are very high at the moment so to stick to our SLAs we’re closing CIC requests due to our rates in that specific market being fairly uncompetitive at present”.
It added that “this should only be a short-term solution to keep up with SLAs”.
In a statement sent to Health & Protection this week, L&G confirmed that it continues to quote for group CI cover and has not paused this activity.
“As is standard practice in the group risk market, opportunities are assessed on a case-by-case basis and we do not quote on every opportunity presented to us,” it added.
“We remain committed to the group critical illness market and continue to support intermediaries of all sizes.
“Our account managers and teams work closely with intermediaries to identify opportunities where we can provide the most value to them and their clients.”