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Qualified nurses will undertake the interviews, at a time and place to suit the consumer.

If requested by Friends Provident they will contact the applicant and ask them a number of questions focussing mainly on their medical history and will be able to ask more detailed questions on specific disclosures. This change to underwriting is designed to provide advisers and customers with a number of benefits including faster processing of applications with reduced need for general practitioners reports GPRs ; reduced non-disclosure; signature free and more informed underwriting decisions.

Mark Jones, protection products and actuarial manager at Friends Provident, said: "The new tele-interviewing service will speed up processing which will benefit advisers and it will enable us to gather more detailed information about the applicant’s health.

"This will benefit the customer as it means we can make a more informed underwriting decision. Most importantly, there is less chance that a claim will be disputed and we believe this will reduce non-disclosure."

Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh, added: "Friends Provident have changed their medical limits reducing the reliance on GPRs. After extensive piloting with MorganAsh over the last two years Friends Provident proved that nurse tele-interviews do provide sufficient information to enable underwriting without GPRs for many situations. This speeds up the process dramatically from weeks to days improving the service to brokers, and consumers."