"By joining IRESS’ enhanced underwriting service, we can give more customers a clearer view on their personal price for financial protection."
Products available through Scottish Widows Protect, the company’s intermediary protection proposition, will now be added to the portal, joining AIG Life, Aegon, Aviva and The Exeter.
In November last year IRESS extended its underwriting service to include all protection products on The Exchange and introduced enhanced underwriting functionality that captures more details about a client’s height and weight. The additional information returns a partially underwritten quote that takes BMI into account.
This enables advisers to provide their clients with a more accurate quote at outset for Term, Whole of Life, Income Protection, Critical Illness, multi-policy and multi-benefit products.
Intermediaries can access the service either directly via The Exchange or through XPLAN and XPLAN Mortgage via a seamless integration.
Andrew Simon, Executive General Manager, Product at IRESS, commented: “Through IRESS solutions, intermediaries can now process protection products and manage expectations for clients with a high BMI, more simply and with a far greater degree of certainty around cost at the point of sale. This increased certainty helps in building stronger relationships and trust and increases the likelihood of consumers taking out protection cover.
“We’re delighted to welcome Scottish Widows to the list of providers making their protection products available through IRESS’ enhanced underwriting service. We are in advanced discussions with other providers and are looking forward to welcoming them onto the service in the near future.”
Scott Cadger, Head of Underwriting and Claims at Scottish Widows, added: "When it comes to price, creating certainty is key. We know from our own analysis over the last year that BMI is one of the most common reasons for customer pricing to change from the initial quote, which is why, by joining IRESS’ enhanced underwriting service, we can give more customers a clearer view on their personal price for financial protection. This is another great reason why protection is easy with Scottish Widows.”
