SunLife announces CI changes

clock

SunLife has announced changes to its critical illness cover in line with the ABI's updated best practice.

Cancer and stroke definitions will remain ABI standard, the definition for heart attack is now ABI+.

The new heart attack definition requires a "rise of biochemical cardiac specific markers" rather than requiring a troponin level of at least 0.2 which is the ABI definition.

Mark Jones, protection director at SunLife, said: "We have enhanced our heart attack definition to make it a little easier for customers to claim for Heart Attack."

Jones added: "Most critical illness products have great long lists of illnesses, making it difficult for customers to be confident that they understand what is and isn't covered; we wanted to do something different."

He said: "Cancer, Heart Attack and Stroke make up nearly 90% of critical illness claims, and our qualitative research found that the majority of customers were unable to name any additional illnesses that they would expect to see covered over and above cancer, heart attack and stroke.

"Using this information we decided to bring to the market a critical illness product that is straightforward and affordable; our cover is available from £5 a month and is easy to understand as it covers just the three critical illnesses - heart attack, stroke and cancer.

"Initially we had expected that the critical illness take-up rate would be around 20-30% however our simplified approach has seen over half of our customers choose to add CI since we launched in September 2014."

Further reading:

L&G pays over £8.5million in breast cancer claims

Bowel cancer can be divided into ‘four distinct diseases' - study

Scottish Widows re-enters adviser market with protection platform

 

More on Critical Illness

Aviva boosts critical illness offering

Aviva boosts critical illness offering

Includes elements of AIG’s proposition

Jaskeet Briah
clock 18 November 2024 • 3 min read
FCA launches market study into pure protection

FCA launches market study into pure protection

Broad remit for investigation

Cameron Roberts
clock 28 August 2024 • 2 min read
Core vs comprehensive CI

Core vs comprehensive CI

Question of quality

Alan Lakey
clock 13 August 2024 • 2 min read

Highlights

COVER Survey: Advisers damning of protection insurer service levels

COVER Survey: Advisers damning of protection insurer service levels

"It takes longer than ever to get underwriting terms"

John Brazier
clock 12 October 2023 • 5 min read
Online reviews trump price for young people selecting life and health cover

Online reviews trump price for young people selecting life and health cover

According to latest ReMark report

John Brazier
clock 11 October 2023 • 2 min read
ABI members with staff neurodiversity policy nearly doubles

ABI members with staff neurodiversity policy nearly doubles

Women within executive teams have grown to 32%

Jaskeet Briah
clock 10 October 2023 • 3 min read