Impartial reviews on the latest products and how they can impact consumers.
February 2011 AXA PPP healthcare: Menu
AXA’s Protection Account offers life, critical illness, mortgage income protection and business protection cover. A number of changes have recently been introduced: • Children’s cover now includes children in full time education up to age 21 (18 still continues for those not in full time education). The maximum benefit is the lower of 50% of the sum insured or £25,000. • The stroke definition is now ‘ABI+’. AXA has removed the exclusion for traumatic injury to brain tissue or blood vessels (and says it is the first company to do this). • Overall the plan includes ten ABI+ definitions. •…
read more »
February 2011 Aviva: GIP
Aviva’s latest changes to its existing group income protection (GIP) plans include: • A new escalation rate. Benefits can rise in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI), capped at 2.5% a year. • Stress counselling helpline. This gives employees access to support from counselling professionals 24/7. • Bereavement helpline. Offers support to relatives and partners of GIP customers who have died or to those who have suffered bereavement themselves. • Legal helpline. This offers access to legal advice on any issue. • GP helpline. This gives employees and their families access to legal advice on any issue at any…
read more »
February 2011 ASU
Assurant Solutions claims to have the first ASU (accident, sickness and unemployment) products to be underwritten at point of sale. It says that this new breed of annually renewable products promises to be the antidote to the problems that have plagued the product in recent years. The plan comes in two versions—Home Protector for mortgage or rent payments and Income Protector as a short term means to protect a percentage of income. Essentially, Home Protector covers up to 120% of mortgage or rental payments up to £3,000 a month, while Income Protector covers up to £3,000 of monthly income. Both…
read more »
January 2011 Cuna Mutual Group Europe: WL
Cuna Mutual has launched a new life insurance product in conjunction with The Co-operative Life Planning. The plan is available direct, and also through building societies and credit unions across the UK. FuneralProtect+ offers a choice of guaranteed sum assured of between £2,000 and £6,000 per insured person and can cover up to 12 family members. Premiums start at just £2 a month. Someone aged 50-59 would pay £7.00 a month for £2,000 of cover, while someone aged 30-39 would pay £3.00 a month and someone aged 60-69 would pay £13.00 a month. Premiums are pro rata for higher sums…
read more »
January 2011 Bupa: CI
Our second Bupa review this month is a very different animal and comes from Bupa Individual Protection, which is shortly to become part of the Friends Provident brand at Resolution. An existing product, Bupa has introduced two main changes to this and the equivalent standalone CI plan: 1. Severe Crohn’s disease and benign brain tumour have been added to the conditions covered. The full list is now: Alzheimer’s disease; aorta graft surgery; aplastic anaemia; bacterial meningitis; benign brain tumour; benign spinal cord tumour; blindness; cancer; cardiomyopathy; chronic rheumatoid arthritis; coma; coronary artery by-pass graft; Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (which, incidentally, is spelt…
read more »
