Ageas Protect has overhauled its critical illness (CI) product to include15 ABI+ condition definitions and extended its relationship with Best Doctors.
The provider has said it will be targeting the value for money end of the CI market with no plans to move into the partial payments or severity based coverage.
The product has gone live to IFAs and includes developments on children's cover and total and permanent disability (TPD) definitions.
All of the changes will be applied to existing CI customers at no extra cost while it is compliant with the 2011 ABI statement of best practice.
The upgraded benefits include:
• Four new ABI+ definitions (including cancer, multiple sclerosis and stroke) taking the total to 15,
• Double child payment where treatment is not available in the UK but is overseas, supported by Best Doctors,
• ABI+ definition for two TPD definitions, with total disability (without being permanent) available with TPD as one option rather than two.
The children's cover is an additional benefit which doubles the existing children's benefit from 50% of sum assured up to a maximum of £50,000, to 100% of the sum assured up to a maximum of £100,000.
This new feature applies to all covers, so if each parent has a single life plan two payouts could be available.
Martin Werth, managing director at Ageas Protect, said: "Our objective is to ensure that customers have value for money and effective protection against serious events.
"We have achieved this with enhanced definitions, with 15 ABI+ definitions, and our unique option of temporary disability, which does not require a condition to be permanent before a benefit is paid.
"Once again we have shown that our existing customers are as important as new customers and our definition enhancements will be applied to all our customers retrospectively," he added.
Andy Millburn, head of marketing at Ageas protect, told COVER that the provider was not planning to move into partial payments or severity based cover.
Instead it will be seeking a best value approach for customers while looking to strengthen its standing with IFAs.
Last week the provider revealed it now had a 7.8% share of the IFA market while it had improved new business over the first three quarters of the year.
