Royal London's Diabetes life cover is now widely available following a smaller launch last year through a limited number of advisers to test market appetite for the product.
Christina Rigby, product specialist at Royal London, said the feedback from advisers who participated in the pilot has been enthusiastic and helped further shape the product.
She said: "People living with chronic conditions such as diabetes can find the application process for insurance intrusive and complicated. We were keen to remove the barriers that put people off applying for cover.
"A lengthy, intrusive underwriting process is now a thing of the past for people living with diabetes and has been welcomed both by advisers and customers."
The product features include capped premiums, which is a first in the protection market and a tailored fast track application process with immediate acceptance.
Advisers can get a quote for clients with risk factors in minutes avoiding a lengthy underwriting process.
Diabetes life cover has built in flexibility that means premiums can be reduced by up to 40 per cent if the customer is managing their diabetes well.
If a customer’s HbA1c test result falls into a lower band, then they will get a price reduction.
Over the term of the policy premiums can stay the same or reduce and will never exceed the premium set at the start of the policy.
Diabetes life cover is most suitable for people with type one and less well controlled type two diabetes who find it more difficult to access protection.
This group makes up 82 per cent of people living with diabetes.
The customer journey, risk pricing and health management process is supported by the Kalibre insurance platform, developed by AllLife and delivered by Royal London in partnership with Blue Circle Life.
Gavin Cookman, general manager at Blue Circle Life, said: "Diabetics are used to waiting up to six weeks for a quote. We are able to provide clients the cover they want in less than 20 minutes."
Claire Walsh, chartered financial planner at Aspect 8, said: "It sounds great and it is part of a really positive trend of insurers being increasingly innovative to try to offer better tailored cover, which means more people being able to access cover.
"More business for them, more people getting covered. It is a win, win situation."
aamina.zafar@ft.com
