Launched in March 2012, CIExpert was the first-ever critical illness comparison site. Today the bulk of the dedicated protection advisers’ population use it for both analysis and compliance.

Alan Lakey commented: “Whilst user feedback has always been positive, we decided that to combat the growing complexity of plans we needed to advance to another level of precision together with new tools to make it even easier for advisers to interpret the value for their clients.”

Following feedback from our subscribers we have now introduced the Personalised Predictive Analysis tool (PPA) as a free upgrade from the existing system.

• ‘Personalised’ because it takes into account the client’s exact family situation.
• ‘Predictive’ because this information is used to assess the likelihood of a future claim and payment level.
• ‘Analysis’ because all of the above is calculated to interpret the value of a plan, taking into account every condition included.

It has never been so difficult to compare the values of competing critical illness plans, especially when attempting to compare them with historic plans. There are over 140 conditions in use and more are being added at a steady rate. No two insurers agree on which conditions should be included and neither do they
agree on which claim wording to use. Advisers’ want a speedy and simple to use tool which compares every condition using past incidence to assess the values. They also need to produce a personalised report, which explains the rationale behind the recommendation and provides a solid compliance back-up.

Over the past few months the new system has been piloted by a number of specialist protection firms. David Mead, Joint Head of Protection at St James Place Protection Planning commented: “Our adviser team has just completed a pilot period with the advanced version of CIExpert and have nothing but good things to say about it. The breakdown of conditions covered is easier to read, it helps make the client report more bespoke, it’s more user friendly and the video tutorials are also really useful for new advisers. We’ve been CIExpert users for several years now and can’t imagine how anyone could provide critical illness advice without this amazing tool at their fingertips. CIExpert forms an integral part of our advice process.”

The Enhancements in Detail

Level or Decreasing – Users can now choose between level and decreasing term plans. When decreasing term is selected they can input the required interest rate.

The Plan Term – The value of a plan and the underlying conditions will vary as client’s become older. Therefore, the actual term of the plan is integral when calculating the value. The new system enables advisers to input the term which, in combination with the sum insured and the type of plan, determines the overall value.

Age Range – With many mortgages and also share-protection/keyman plans running to age 70 or beyond, the system is now able to analyse adult age ranges  from 17 through to 85. This enables the client’s exact age and term of policy to be input which is fundamental when determining the overall values of competing plans.

Valuing Children’s Cover – Children’s cover has increasingly become an important determinant when selecting the most appropriate plan. To value children’s cover properly the numbers of children and their ages is essential. Many clients intend starting or increasing their families in the near future and this should also be taken into account.

CIExpert now enables advisers to comprehensively value the impact of children’s cover by incorporating all of the above using the same depth of analysis as utilised for adult cover.

Breakdown of Key Elements – Advisers and clients’ need to be able to understand what elements actually drive the scores and to this end we have broken down the scores into three components – 100% payment conditions, additional payment conditions and children’s conditions.

Understanding the Values of Conditions – Some conditions may have an important impact on the overall scores. To show this without adding undue
complexity we have introduced gold, silver and bronze ‘thumbs-up’ icons. Gold denotes an important impact, silver means a moderate impact whilst bronze is minimal.

Personalised Report – Adviser now have the choice of producing a summary report or a comprehensive version. Both the FCA and the FOS have commented that lengthy reports are far less likely to be read thereby negating their whole purpose thereby reducing their effectiveness as a compliance tool.

The summary report is designed for client use whilst the comprehensive version can be retained for compliance purposes. Both reports are interactive enabling advisers to quickly pull out key elements when discussing with clients.

Summary

The purpose of a critical illness plan is to pay a valid claim and the worth of a plan is determined by what conditions are included within the plan, the effectiveness of the claim wording being used and the amount being paid out.

The new PPA upgrade provides the answer for advisers who want to be confident in selecting the best options for their clients without spending the hours needed to undertake their own analysis. It provides a detailed assessment of each plans’ virtues and by utilising the gold/silver and bronze icons it indicates
to advisers and clients where one plan has an advantage over its competitor.

The effectiveness of the new system is highlighted by Lucy Brown, Head of Protection at L&C Mortgages:

“CIExpert remains the go-to tool for the comparison of critical illness and stands head and shoulders above its competition. The efficiencies it provides to our advisers and business are enormous. It adds peace of mind that we’re ensuring customers have the most comprehensive cover with the provider that’s most
likely to provide the best outcome for them. The team at CIExpert have listened to feedback and made further system enhancements with an incredible level of detail, now allowing for children’s ages helping advisers unravel the ever more complicated range of definitions, as well as considering the full term of a
policy including any decreasing benefit. All this wrapped up in an easy to use system that provides a report that is beneficial to advisers and customers alike.”

Users will be delighted to learn that this upgrade is being introduced without any increase to the subscription cost. A free one-day trial is available at http://www.ciexpert.co.uk/freetrial.