Aviva has revamped its critical illness (CI) cover for new customers with changes including the addition of three new conditions and improvements to its heart attack definition.
As a result of the changes, 53 conditions will be covered, 17 of which are ABI+.
Meanwhile, the insurer has amended its heart attack cover by lowering the threshold of troponin levels which need to be met in order for a heart attack to qualify as a valid claim.
Previously a customer would have needed a troponin level recorded at the following level or higher: troponin T > 1.0 ng/ml. Under the new cover, this level will need to be troponin T > 0.2 ng/ml. This is lower than any other provider in the IFA market for a full payment claim.
In addition, two of the new conditions covered - Devic's disease, a progressive neurological condition, and spinal stroke - are new to the UK CI market. The third new condition is cardiac arrest.
Aviva has also introduced two new partial payment conditions, bladder removal and non-malignant pituitary tumour, providing the lower of £20,000 or 20% of sum insured. It will cover bladder removal for any reason, the only provider in the IFA market to do this.
New CI policies will also pay a children's lump sum death benefit of £5,000. This is in addition to child CI benefit of up to £25,000 and will be paid on top of any payouts made for child CI.
Andy Doran, claims philosophy manager said: "It's always been our ethos to only add conditions which make a genuine difference to the customer, so we've worked very closely with our claims experts and used our claims experience to enhance our cover.
"For example, no provider or adviser wants to be in the position of saying: ‘I know you've had a heart attack, but it's not bad enough', so we've really concentrated on where we can add most value.
"Ninety-three per cent of our critical illness claims are made up from just five conditions - cancer, heart attack, stroke, multiple sclerosis and benign brain tumour - so we've focused our improvements around these."
The insurer has also created a video to explain enhancements to advisers, which can be found HERE
