Posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 12:26pm
Life insurance and critical illness cover provider Prestbury Holdings has revealed that it has incurred losses of £1 million.
Despite having a turnover of £10.78 million in the 14 months leading up to the end of 2007, the critical illness cover company said that 2006’s profit of £250,000 had been replaced by a seven-figure loss.
Prestbury blamed the bad news on the so-called credit crunch and the difficulties at Northern Rock.
In separate news, it has been revealed by a Which? investigation that one mortgage advisor attempted to sell a critical illness cover policy to a customer by using Kylie Minogue’s breast cancer diagnosis as an example of how important cover can be.
Posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 11:21am
Life insurance firm Norwich Union has reported that its payouts to critical illness cover policyholders rose to record levels last year.
In 2006, payouts on critical illness cover policies totalled some £95 million, representing 80% of all claims made. Both these figures went up in 2007, with total payouts reaching £106 million, representing 84% of all claims made.
Darren Dicks, Norwich Union’s head or protection products, commented on the need for policyholders to be honest and thorough when it comes to disclosure. “Critical illness claims can only be paid if the customer has a valid policy and their claim meets the policy criteria,” he said.
He also added, “Many insurers face harsh criticism for not paying claims but the system is a two-way street where customers and their advisers need to play their part. Critical illness cover is not a catch-all insurance but offers financial assistance against a range of specified serious conditions.
“In order to ensure a claim will be met, people need to ensure they have a valid policy and checking their illness meets the criteria of the policy provided. If this was done in 100 per cent of cases, 100 per cent of claims would be paid.”
Posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 3:29pm
Canada Life has announced that it is offering free critical illness cover for children to all members of its CLASS scheme.
The CLASS scheme, open to those seeking protection for between three and 100 lives, is open to intermediaries seeking to assess risk for small and medium sized businesses.
Free critical illness cover for children will be available to any member with a child of between 30 days and 18 years of age. It will provide cover of up to £20,000.
Dan Stewart, the life insurance firm's business development manager, comments, “We are extremely pleased to be able to offer this added benefit to our core Group Critical Illness eProduct.
“The critical illness market has extremely low penetration in the UK which presents an excellent opportunity for growth. Free children’s critical illness cover serves to enhance the product and we hope that it will help raise awareness and highlight the benefits of this valuable product.”
Posted on Monday, July 07th, 2008 at 9:00am
A UK life insurance company has commented that with UK citizens living longer than at any time in history, people should be looking at taking out policies like critical illness cover, decreasing term cover and level term cover with more seriousness than ever before.
Statistics released by the company, Life Trust, show that with an increasing number of British people taking on new debt as they move into their sixtieth decade, life insurance policies like critical illness cover are becoming hugely important to senior citizens.
The life insurance company's chief executive officer commented, "People are living longer, healthier lives. This is great news but only if people have the finances in place to really enjoy their post-career years.
"The combination of rising life expectancy and the impact of inflation over time can have huge financial implications, and this report allows us, for the first time, to see the scale of these trends.
"With more and more people reaching 90 and beyond, and with 90 becoming the new 70 in terms of healthy ageing, it has never been more necessary for the industry and individuals to understand the true cost of modern retirement."
Policies like critical illness cover are much cheaper to elderly people who live healthy lifestyles. To find out more about living a healthy lifestyle go to the Age Concern website.
