SunLife has added critical illness cover to its direct-to-consumer life insurance offering and will begin to offer the product through select intermediated channels over the next 12 months.
The new product has been specifically designed to be simple and affordable, the company said, citing research which it said found that 39 per cent of consumers valued easy-to-understand products, rating this more important than price (27 per cent) and performance (28 per cent).
Dean Lamble, SunLife managing director, said: “The leading reasons people don’t buy life insurance is they find the process too complicated and perceive the price to be too high.
“We want to transform the market and design products around consumers’ needs. More and more consumers are looking for the same retail experience they enjoy when buying non-financial services products.”
The maximum sum insured for applicants aged up to and including 50 is £500,000, dropping to £250,000 for applicants aged 51-59.
Potential customers will have to answer health and lifestyle related questions and have the option of adding critical illness cover against a range of cancers, heart attack and stroke only.
