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According to Stuart Lawson, protection marketing manager at Axa, building upon services such as tele-underwriting is more important to the market than introducing new products as it improves the image of the protection sector.

In a recent survey of 700 tele-underwriting customers by Axa, it found that 89 per cent of customers who used the service were satisfied with the process.

It claims that by speaking to a tele-underwriter over the phone non-disclosure is reduced to 1.23 per cent compared to 5.78 per cent for paper applications and 3.48 per cent for electronic applications, all of which aims to clean up the industry image.

“Under tele-underwriting we have not yet denied any claims,” said Lawson who explained that Axa has been offering the service since 2004.

Lawson also raised concerns about the Retail Distribution review (RDR) and warned that there was a risk that by introducing the advice and sales models more consumers could end up under insured.

He said a big education campaign would need to accompany the RDR to educate consumers on their choices.