F&TRC has launched product ratings for income protection and family income benefit to help advisers and employers make suitable protection recommendations for their clients.
Following consultation with a range of experts and adviser firms each provider has been awarded either a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal for both their overall proposition and also for each of the following underlying categories:
• Incapacity definition
• Claim statistics
• Claims process
• Premium options
• Added value benefits
• Deferred periods
• Indexation
• Terminal Illness Benefit (FIB only)
• Exclusions (FIB only)
Carlos Thibaut, managing director of Lifetime Group , said: "Income Protection is an essential part of sound financial planning and it is important that advisers have confidence that such policies will pay out and give their clients a really good claims experience. Any tools or resources that can build adviser confidence by factoring in such issues and help establish who has the best processes are very welcome.
"We really like being able to have a single overall rating as well as ratings in the underlying areas benchmarked as this enables us to compare insurers based on individual parts of their proposition."
Simon Hendy, key account director at Mortgage Advice Bureau, added: "Family Income Benefit is an underused product that provides clients with great value. A ratings system that helps advisers to easily compare the family income benefit policies based on their strengths in a range of areas could really help advisers understand the differences in insurer propositions."
The overall awards in the inaugural F&TRC Income Protection and Family Income Benefit ratings are:
Income Protection
GOLD: The Exeter Income One, Legal & General, LV=, VitalityLife Primary, VitalityLife Comprehensive
SILVER: Aviva, Friends Life, LV= Personal Sick Pay
BRONZE: AEGON, AIG, Bright Grey, The Exeter Pure Protect
Family Income Benefit
GOLD: Aviva, Bright Grey, Friends Life, VitalityLife Comprehensive
SILVER: AIG, Legal & General, LV=, Scottish Provident
BRONZE: AEGON, VitalityLife Essentials
Ian McKenna, director of F&TRC (pictured) said: "Further to our life cover & mortgage protection ratings earlier in the year we are pleased to reward excellence in these new Protection categories and congratulate our inaugural Gold Medal winners.
"We have gathered huge amounts of data from thousands of questions put to providers and I believe this process makes our ratings the most authoritative in the market."
