Vitality will be consolidating three personal protection plans as the provider simplifies its life insurance offering next month.
Its new personal protection plan will consolidate the ‘VitalityLife Plan’, ‘VitalityLife Essentials Plan’ and ‘Vitality Mortgage Plan’ into one protection product.
Within the consolidated product, clients will be able to opt for one, or a combination, of life, income protection and serious illness cover.
The insurer’s activity rewards programme will also be offered to all new life insurance customers at no extra cost.
Additionally, its new personal protection plan will come with an ‘Optimiser’ option that gives clients upfront access to Vitality’s ‘Platinum’ rate, its most preferential rate offering customers up to 30 per cent lower premiums than the standard plan term rate.
Customers will be able to maintain the preferential rate by engaging with the provider’s activity rewards programme.
Customers who choose the ‘Optimiser’ option and have a premium over £45 (or £60 for a joint policy) will also have access to an enhanced rewards system, at the cost of £4.75 a month.
Deepak Jobanputra, managing director of VitalityLife, said: “Today’s simplification announcement reflects our continued commitment to our core purpose - to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives.
“Our new protection product offering will incentivise and reward people to live healthier lives through access to our Vitality Programme at no extra cost, whilst also consolidating the best aspects of our three existing personal protection products into one comprehensive and easy to use product and Optimiser.
“This is a new evolution for the life business at Vitality. All the changes announced today have been done on the back of direct adviser feedback, meaning it will appeal to a broader set of advisers and clients and have a significant impact on the market.”
Ian McKenna, founder and director of FTRC, said: “The level of customer contact achieved through Vitality’s health and other programmes is a huge factor in building customer loyalty.
"Quite simply, customers who use the additional benefits Vitality offer day in day out, are far less likely to let plans lapse. That said, from an adviser perspective, over the last decade their contracts have become more and more complicated.
“Today sees a substantial effort from Vitality to rationalise the range and make it easier to understand while at the same time not removing any significant customer benefits or the very wide scope of cover.”
Likewise Alan Lakey, director at CIExpert, said: “Many advisers have lamented the complexity that served to prevent them from recommending one of the Vitality plans”.
However, Mr Lakey added that the plan and its various options remained “convoluted”.
Vitality has also introduced initiatives to support advisers after a review of its processes.
For example, the provider has removed the need for bank details to be entered for pre-underwriting and referred cases.
Advisers can now also change or update underwriting and applications, without having to re-enter the client’s details.
chloe.cheung@ft.com
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