Lakey sets up CI website to compare provider cover
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Highclere Financial Services partner Alan Lakey has developed a critical-illness website which compares the cover available from different providers.
The Critical Illness Insider is due to launch shortly and has been over two years in the making. It will be divided into two parts, with one part for consumers and one for advisers.
The consumer site will explain CI and why it is important. Lakey says it will also encourage consumers to seek advice.
The adviser site will feature comparative tables of the cover on offer from all CI providers. The tables are based on calculations compiled by Lakey which work out incidence rates of various CI conditions.
Providers are scored based on the likelihood of cover paying out.
Lakey says: “Most advisers sell CI on cost and that simply is not good enough. Either advisers are lacking in competence or, far more likely, they are lacking in knowledge.”
The site’s development has been sponsored by Ageas and Bupa although Lakey says that the content is independent.
Adviser subscription is £20 a month, which will include access to the site and updates when changes to cover are made.
Lakey says: “With the FSA’s focus on oral disclosure, this enables advisers to prove they have done due diligence.”
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Readers' comments (14)
Jerry Brown | 14 Jan 2011 10:01 am
I applud this initiative and agree that the scope of coverage is equally as important as price. I hope that this site goes as far illustrating the relative incidence of the various impairments covered by age.
Most CI contracts may have 40 odd conditions covered but if 35 of them are less likely to happen than getting run down by a hedgehog, then where is their value?
This is the missing piece in the educational material around CI. How can a consumer make any form of value judgement when they and their adviser have little or no idea what the relative incidence is of each condition is.
Most conditions covered by CI rarely happen at young age (and by young I mean my age - 55) and, if they do, are already largely covered by occupationally defined TPD cover -that is why the cost of cover for 40 conditions is little different from 10 conditions.
Lets stop deluding ourselves that these add on's add value and we might find that our customers start finding interest in some of the ABI Plus type benefits that often provide a significant increase in scope of coverage.
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Ian Shotton | 14 Jan 2011 10:27 am
Let's hope he includes the excellent PruProtect Serious Illness Cover - up to 161 conditions with whole of body coverage.
Who else covers lumpectomy or Crohn's Disease for instance?
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Alan Lakey | 14 Jan 2011 12:39 pm
Hi Ian, yes, PruProtect will be within the site.
The anbswer to your question is BUPA which include Crohn's Disease
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pete wildebeast | 14 Jan 2011 3:58 pm
John Joseph did something like this a good while back in the early days of critical illness.
Whilst advisers will definitely benefit from the comparison - do consumers really care about some of the more recent add ons? Or even know what they are?
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john joseph | 14 Jan 2011 4:16 pm
Well done Alan.
in answer to some of the questions relating to the number of illnesses covered or coverable and the incidence of those illnesses, the actuaries now how likely they are to pay out on a particular illness and price it in accordingly. What makes our life interesting, is the 1 client in 100 that gets the unusual illness and we make that payment.
I applaud the companies that keep ahead of the competition by adjusting the medical conditions under which a claim will be accepted and i equally acknowledge the major differences between the pack and the Pru!
There is a potential for splitting sums insured which to some extent should be considered in many cases, as then there is a wider breadth of cover, albeit the potential for a smaller payout if it is one of the more esoteric illnesses.
Again, well done Alan!
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Lacey Jones | 15 Jan 2011 9:02 am
This is an excellent idea.
If it can be demonstrated that price is not everything such as those shown on comparison sites then as the saying goes "the cream will rise to the top"
If ever a situation also demonstrated the value of advice....
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PAUL FIELDING | 15 Jan 2011 11:28 am
Well done Alan....something the industry desperately needs if we are to educate the Client about quality rather than price....the industry itself is slow again on the uptake and this is something it has taken an IFA to develop inedpendently, in the pursuit of absolute best advice for the Client - take note FSA....this is the kind of things IFAs do .....when do you want my first 20 quid, Alan?
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Alan Lakey | 17 Jan 2011 10:05 am
Site should be fully functional in about 3 weeks.
Thankyou for all the supportive comments
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Mike Roberts | 17 Jan 2011 1:29 pm
Hi Alan
This should have been done a long time ago and I congratulate you for doing this!! I will be signing up to this as well.
Will you be including the banks that offer their own Critical Illness packages?
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Mike Roberts | 17 Jan 2011 1:29 pm
Hi Alan
This should have been done a long time ago and I congratulate you for doing this!! I will be signing up to this as well.
Will you be including the banks that offer their own Critical Illness packages?
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