"We have designed our ratings to make sure advisers have a tool, created with metrics they have told us are important to them, to answer their protection advice questions quickly and easily."
Each provider has been awarded either a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal for both their overall proposition as well as in several underlying categories.
The categories, and the metrics used to assess the providers, were selected after consultation with a range of independent experts and adviser firms.
Aviva has been upgraded to Gold in three categories - Family Income Benefit with Critical Illness, Life Cover with Critical Illness, and Mortgage Protection with Critical Illness.
The awards ratings for Family Income Benefit with Critical Illness are:
Gold - AIG, Aviva, Royal London, Scottish Widows, Vitality (comprehensive with booster)
Silver - Aegon, Aviva, LV=, Vitality (primary without booster)
Bronze - Legal & General, Zurich
Life Cover awards ratings are:
Gold - Aviva, LV=, Royal London
Silver - AIG, Scottish Widows, Vitality
Bronze - Aegon, Legal & General, Zurich
The awards ratings for Life Cover with Critical Illness are:
Gold - AIG, Aviva, Royal London, Scottish Widows, Vitality (comprehensive with booster)
Silver - Aegon, Aviva, LV=, Vitality (primary with booster)
Bronze - Legal & General, Zurich
Mortgage Protection ratings are:
Gold - Aviva, LV=, Royal London, Scottish Widows
Silver - Vitality, Zurich
Bronze - Aegon, Legal & General
Mortgage Protection with Critical Illness ratings for 2017 are:
Gold - AIG, Aviva, Royal London, Scottish Widows, Vitality (comprehensive with booster)
Silver - Aviva, LV=, Vitality (primary without booster), Zurich
Bronze - Aegon, Legal & General
Ian McKenna, Director of F&TRC, said: “Protection is often the realm of a specialist adviser in many financial planning firms. Adviser firms who don’t have someone in-house dedicated to protection will struggle to give the best and most up-to-date advice and even those who are experts may find it hard to keep up with every provider’s offering in the many types of products that are available. We have designed our ratings to make sure advisers have a tool, created with metrics they have told us are important to them, to answer their protection advice questions quickly and easily. Quality Analyser ensures advisers can give their clients fully informed and expert independent protection advice.
“Although advisers can conduct full product analysis from our research site we also produce the one-page summaries as an additional compliance aid for advisers seeking addition independent assessment for their compliance file.”
