(Flag of Bedfordshire, England, home of British Friendly. Image credit: Lookesmiley.)
British Friendly, a Bedford, U.K.-based mutual insurer, has made its short- and long-term income protection products available through iPipeline UK’s (Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) protection platform, with quotes searchable by benefit and price. The move gives advisers access to the full range of British Friendly products across all the major protection portals. British Friendly’s products are currently available on IRESS, Webline and LifeQuote, as well as British Friendly’s quote and apply website advisers.britishfriendly.com.
Iain Clark, Distribution and Marketing Director, British Friendly.
“I am delighted that we have now come to an agreement with iPipeline to include all of our products on their innovative portal,” comments Iain Clark, Distribution and Marketing Director, British Friendly. “This is the final piece of portal work for British Friendly and now means we are visible on all the major portals in the market.”
“Adviser awareness and engagement are key to a business developing and with this new partnership we will be reaching a new community of advisers that may not have considered British Friendly before,” Clark continues. “We are a passionate business that wants to help the intermediary market to sell Income Protection and that is why we have delivered so many new enhancements to our products in 2016.”
British Friendly recently extended the deferred period options on its short term Income Protection products, Short Term Protect and Breathing Space, and these new options will now be available through iPipeline, the vendor reports. These products have deferred period options of 1, 4, 8 and 13 weeks, meaning British Friendly’s short term Income Protection products have the widest deferred period options on the market for 1-, 2- or 5-year claim periods. British Friendly will be adding these options on the other portals in the coming weeks as well, an iPipeline statement says.
Offering Advisers More Choice
“We’ve experienced dramatic growth in the volume of standalone Income Protection with a rise of 80 percent written via iPipeline,” comments Ian Teague, Managing Director, iPipeline. “When we add in new distribution the increase is a significant 280 percent. This demonstrates that with the use of our systems, in particular SolutionBuilder and the ability to source and model cover options, advisers are more likely to promote Income Protection. We’re really pleased British Friendly is adding their income protection products to our systems, enabling us to offer advisers even more choice and in turn help better protect clients.”
iPipeline UK is a wholly-owned subsidiary of iPipeline Inc., which is owned by Thomas Bravo, a Chicago-based private equity investment firm which provides equity and strategic support to experienced management teams and growing companies.
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