British Friendly’s short and long term income protection products will be available through iPipeline’s platform from today (1 August) and quotes will be searchable by both benefit and price.
This means advisers will now be able to access the full range of British Friendly products across all the major protection portals. Its products are currently available on Iress, Webline and LifeQuote.
The provider’s distribution and market director Iain Clark said adviser awareness and engagement are key to the business developing and this new partnership will reach a new community of advisers.
“We are a passionate business that wants to help the intermediary market to sell income protection and that is why we have delivered so many new enhancements to our products in 2016,” he stated.
In June, British Friendly extended the deferred period options on its short term protection products, Short Term Protect and Breathing Space, with these new options now be available through iPipeline.
These products have deferred period options of one, four, eight and 13 weeks, meaning British Friendly’s short term protection products have the widest deferred period options on the market for one, two or five-year claim periods.
The firm will be adding these options on the other portals in the coming weeks as well.
Ian Teague, managing director at iPipeline, said he’s witnessed dramatic growth in the volume of standalone income protection, with a rise of 80 per cent written via the platform.
“When we add in new distribution, the increase is a significant 280 per cent,” he said. “This demonstrates that with the use of our systems, in particular SolutionBuilder and the ability to source and model cover options, advisers are more likely to promote income protection.”
peter.walker@ft.com
