Insurance provider ESMI has said its products ESMI Life Cover and Life & Critical Illness Cover will no longer be open to new sales from February 2024.
In an email to brokers, the provider said its quoting platform site will close at 5pm on February 29 to new sales and the last start date that customers will be able to choose cover from will be February 15.
The company said with regards to the existing Life book, it was waiting on further information on how this will be handled going forward and will inform customers as soon as it has had feedback from the insurer.
The insurer behind the life plan, Isle of Man Assurance Limited, is withdrawing from the market and has therefore closed the plan to new sales, ESMI stated.
“We believe there is a place in the market for a life insurance plan that carries no medical underwriting, and are holding discussions with new partners to find an alternative offering,” the company said.
Reaction
Mortgageshop.com financial adviser, Gary Bush, described the closure as “another nail in the coffin for consumers” following last year’s “amalgamation” of Aegon, Canada Life, and AIG into other larger competitor insurers.
“Although not a mainstream provider, we have at times had no option than to use this insurer for customers who had tricky health conditions that the larger insurers weren’t happy to cover,” he explained.
Sunland Mortgages' managing director, Robert Timm, added: “It’s better for brokers and consumers to have more choice in the protection space.”
But he said ESMI was not alone as, in the past year, a number of personal protection providers have exited the market, which he described as “not good news”.
Bush shared a similar sentiment: “Over the last three decades, the range of insurers operating in the country has often seen takeovers, mergers, but this truly isn’t good news when, in such a short space of time, we have now lost at least four brands of life insurance.”
This therefore leaves the market “far less competitive than it has previously been”.
On the other hand, Release Freedom broker and director, Simon Bridgland, said “other policies similar to this are still available if needed”.
Additionally, The Mortgage Expert mortgage expert, Darryl Dhoffer, identified that other insurance providers might see this as an opportunity to “fill the gap in the market” by offering similar products with competitive features.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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