- Guardian’s new low-cost life cover – Life Essentials – is now available on Guardian’s quote and apply platform, Protection Builder, and major portals
- From today, advisers have a choice of two different life cover options from Guardian, designed to suit a range of client priorities and protection budgets:
- Life Protection – Guardian’s existing premier life cover: for clients whose priority is quality
- Life Essentials – the new low-cost life cover: for clients whose priority is price
- Alongside the go-live, Guardian has implemented some changes to its policy terms and conditions
Today’s go-live follows Guardian’s announcement earlier this month about its plans to offer a choice of life covers within its Protection Menu. By offering this choice, Guardian seeks to better support advisers with clients who have been impacted by the higher cost-of-living and to widen customer access to Guardian’s menu of outcomes-focused protection products.
The new low-cost Life Essentials is designed to appeal to price-sensitive clients and advisers whose priority for life cover is affordability, while still generating good outcomes by retaining the essential features that inform Guardian’s approach and philosophy. It sits alongside Guardian’s existing premier Life Protection which appeals to clients and advisers whose priority is quality and who value the enhanced terminal illness definition, 4-week premium waiver and other high-quality features embedded within the premier product.
Hilary Banks, Sales Director, Guardian, said: “We’re delighted to announce that our new Life Essentials cover is now available for quote and apply within our platform Protection Builder, as well as on IRESS, iPipeline, Protection Platform from UnderwriteMe, and LifeQuote. Sitting alongside our existing premier life cover, this addition provides more choice for a wide range of advisers looking to put in place Guardian’s award-winning protection for their clients.
“The introduction of greater choice from Guardian has been well received by the market, which is in line with what advisers were telling us about their clients needing to prioritise costs. We’ve also been encouraged by the comments about the role of advice in explaining quality differences, as this choice is ultimately about providing fair value to different customer segments and continuing to drive good outcomes and build trust in our industry. Going forward, we’re very excited to begin working with our advice partners to maximise this important distribution opportunity and get more people the protection they need.”
Other changes to Protection Menu policy terms and conditions
At the same time as Life Essentials going live, Guardian has made some other changes to its Protection Menu. The first change is to all Decreasing Covers, where Guardian is increasing the interest rate from 5% to 8%. This more closely aligns to mortgage interest rate levels and the rates at which clients will typically be seeing their outstanding mortgage decrease. Alongside, it is removing the Mortgage Guarantee.
In addition, in line with the ABI’s latest review of critical illness minimum standards, Guardian has improved two of its critical illness definitions: Dementia and Low-Grade Prostate cancer. For full details of the change please see note 2 within the notes to editors.
-Release ends-
Notes to editors:
Press enquiries to Natalie Robinson, 07789 501146, Natalie.robinson@guardianfs.co.uk
For a full list of Guardian’s awards visit: https://guardian1821.co.uk/about-us/our-awards/
Note 1: Similarities and differences between the Guardian life cover options:
Life Essentials and Life Protection: What’s the same?
The new low-cost Life Essentials cover has many of the benefits you’d expect from a Guardian policy. These include: Guardian’s dual life approach; Premium Waiver (a 26-week deferred period which pays out on ‘own job’); Optional Child’s Critical Illness Protection; no compromise on Guardian’s 5 star service; the same approach to underwriting; and the same value-added services, Guardian Anytime and HALO bespoke claims support service.
Life Essentials and Life Protection: What’s different?
By contrast, to make the product affordable some high-quality features are reduced in the low-cost Life Essentials cover, including the Terminal Illness definition and the length of the Premium Waiver deferred period. The differences are outlined below:
|
LIFE PROTECTION |
LIFE ESSENTIALS |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Terminal illness
|
Pays out if a client is expected to survive for less than 12 months. Also pays out if they’re diagnosed with incurable stage 4 cancer, motor neurone disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or Parkinson-plus syndromes even if they’re expected to survive more than 12 months. |
Pays out if a client is expected to survive for less than 12 months.
|
|
Premium Waiver
|
Included as standard with a 4-week deferred period. Premiums waived if the client is too ill to work. Premiums also waived for up to 6 months for maternity/paternity leave or if they involuntarily lose their job. |
Included as standard with a 26-week deferred period. Premiums waived if the client is too ill to work.
|
|
Exclusions
|
No standard exclusions.
|
Doesn’t pay out if death is due to suicide or is a result of intentional self-inflicted injury in the first 12 months of the cover.
|
|
Cover type
|
Level Cover, Increasing Cover, Decreasing Cover, and Family Income Benefit are all available. Increasing Cover increases in line with the retail price index (RPI). |
Level Cover, Increasing Cover, and Decreasing Cover are available. Increasing Cover increases in line with the consumer price index including owner occupiers’ housing cost (CPIH). |
|
Lifestyle Promise
|
A client’s premium may be reduced if they were paying an increased amount due to their health or lifestyle and they subsequently: stop smoking, lose weight, change job, give up sports activities.
|
A client’s premium may be reduced if they were paying an increased amount due to smoking and they subsequently stop smoking.
|
|
Immediate cover
|
Temporary cover, of the same type applied for, and it starts as soon as the application is submitted online. Pays out a maximum of £1 million before we offer terms. |
Temporary cover, of the same type applied for, and it starts as soon as the application is submitted online. Pays out a maximum of £300,000 before we offer terms. |
Note 2: Side-by-side comparison of critical illness definition updates:
Previous definition |
New definition |
| A definite diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia by a UK Consultant Neurologist, Psychiatrist or Geriatrician.
There must be permanent clinical loss of ability to do all of the following:
The following is not covered: Mild cognitive impairment. |
Dementia including Alzheimer’s – A definite diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia by a by a UK Consultant Neurologist, Geriatrician, Neuropsychologist or Psychiatrist.
There must be permanent cognitive dysfunction with progressive deterioration in the ability to do all of the following:
The following is not covered: Mild cognitive impairment. |
| Low-grade prostate cancer – A definite diagnosis by a UK Consultant of a malignant tumour of the prostate positively diagnosed and histologically classified as having a Gleason score between 2 and 6 inclusive and having progressed to clinical TNM classification T1N0M0 – T2aN0M0 inclusive. (If the prostate cancer is classified as having progressed to a Gleason score of 7 and above or clinical classification T2bN0M0, we’ll pay out the full amount covered.) | Low-grade prostate cancer – A definite diagnosis by a UK Consultant of a malignant tumour of the prostate positively diagnosed and histologically classified as having a Gleason score between 2 and 6 inclusive and having progressed to clinical TNM classification T1N0M0 – T2aN0M0 inclusive. (If the prostate cancer is classified as having progressed to a Gleason score of 7 and above or clinical classification T2bN0M0 or pT2N0M0 following prostatectomy (removal of the prostate), we’ll pay out the full amount covered.) |
Guardian Financial Services is an appointed representative of Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
All products are provided by Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited and we have an agreement with them to underwrite and issue the protection policies we distribute through the UK intermediary channel.
As an appointed representative of Scottish Friendly Assurance Society Limited, Guardian Financial Services Limited is the market-facing brand under which we promote our proposition and engage with advisers.
Background to Guardian Financial Services, owned by Gryphon Group Holdings
Guardian, the life and protection insurance business, launched in 2018 and pledged to grow the protection market. The brand promise of ‘Life. Made Better.’ reflects the company’s commitment to rethink and reinvent protection for the better; making sure customers get cover that’s easier to understand, simple to buy and designed to never let them down.
Guardian’s business partners
Gryphon Group Holdings is majority owned by Punter Southall Group as the largest equity capital investor. Guardian partners with UnderwriteMe for its Underwriting Engine, Liss Systems, the UK arm of Nasdaq-listed EXL, for its policy administration technology, and Space, for its front-end technology, branding and marketing. Guardian’s reinsurance partners are Hannover Re and Gen Re.