"This is we believe a major industry milestone enabling advisers to confidently compare the merits of all the options available to their clients in the market using a methodology that considers all conditions together with the payment levels for both adults and children."
- CIExpert
CIExpert has officially announced the launch of VitalityLife comparisons, with the same depth of analysis and scrutiny that is applied to all CIC plans, as well as the creation of a new separate SIC comparison feature, to help advisers understand the differences between severity and standard design plans.
Prior to the launch, detailed research was required to analyse the statistical likelihood of a payout for each condition that is unique to Vitality, together with different levels of severity applied to common CIC conditions. CIExpert is the only comparison system that includes all 60 conditions unique to Vitality, considering every level of severity payment.
With the Consumer Duty deadline looming, CIExpert believes it is “imperative that advisers have a process that enables them to compare the current range of critical/serious illness plans and also be able to compare them with plans dating back to their launch under the PruProtect banner in 2007.”
Over the years, CIExpert has played a vital role in advocating for the grouping of conditions, looking to simplify both adviser and client understanding of conditions. Consequently, CIExpert has chosen to structure its comparisons for Vitality by grouping conditions in a meaningful way, making it easier to compare the relative merits of related conditions.
With most insurers now adopting a dual approach (offering both core and comprehensive plans) the ability to compare has never been so important. With that in mind, Vitality has joined CIExpert’s Insight Zone, adding an additional set of tools to assist advisers in understanding the broader aspects of Vitality’s offering.
CIExpert felt this was “an essential element, particularly for advisers new to Vitality’s proposition, to ensure they have the tools at hand to better understand the three Vitality plans.”
Since CIExpert is fully integrated with both SolutionBuilder and Iress, this launch will enable advisers and clients to visualise the trade-offs between price and quality, with the new added feature of viewing both Standard & Optimised Vitality premiums.
Commenting on the launch, Andy Philo, VitalityLife director of strategic partnerships, has said:
“We are delighted advisers will now be able to find Vitality’s Serious Illness Cover products on CIExpert.
“We’ve worked extensively with the CIExpert team to develop a solution that enables advisers to compare our full range of severity-based products with the rest of the market. We believe our inclusion on the system will allow more advisers to recognise the broad strength of our protection proposition and give them the opportunity to recommend relevant cover that meets the rapidly changing needs of clients.
“With Consumer Duty on the horizon, delivering better client outcomes through protection conversations based on quality of cover rather than just price is more vital than ever. Our involvement with CIExpert will allow advisers to evidence the quality of Vitality’s proposition, as a market-leading product.”
