Swiss Re’s IptiQ protection insurance technology provider has adopted a beneficiary nomination technology which aims to remove the need for trusts to ensure death benefits are paid to the correct person.
The Insuring Change service provides insurers using iptiQ’s digital platform for life insurance with a solution to ensure customers’ policies are correctly set up to direct the proceeds.
As a result, customers will be able to ensure their death benefits can be paid as intended from day one, without the complications of a trust, the firm said.
As circumstances change in the future, there is also the flexibility to update beneficiary details later.
Oliver Leemoon, insurance product manager at IptiQ said: “Based on our research, one in three couples taking life cover aren’t married. This can mean the partner has no right to the claim amount if no step to direct it correctly is taken.
“What’s more, Swiss Re’s Term & Health Watch reported the proportion of new level term life policies written in trust in 2020 was still as low as 14%.
“We felt it important to be part of the solution to this growing problem and beneficiary nomination fits well with our digital insurance proposition.”
Ruth Gilbert, partner and co-founder at Insuring Change said: “This hasn’t come a moment too soon, with the new FCA Customer Duty requirement to test fair value throughout the distribution chain and unfair or poor value explicitly stated to mean ‘unsuitable features that can lead to foreseeable harm or frustrate the customer’s use of the product’.
“So, I’m delighted to see IptiQ taking this lead on making technology an enabler to ensuring policies can easily be set up to perform as intended.”