Guardian has announced changes to its policy terms and conditions that widen who can apply for its life and critical illness covers. The updates relate to residency requirements and the length of time an applicant needs to have been registered with a UK doctor.
From today, applicants for Guardian’s Life Protection, Life Essentials, Critical Illness Protection, or Combined Life and Critical Illness Protection must:
- Have lived in the UK for the past 6 months and have the right to remain.
- Be currently registered with a UK doctor.
These updated criteria replace the previous requirement for applicants to have lived in the UK and been registered with a UK GP for at least 2 years.
The changes don’t apply to Income Protection, which retains the existing criteria. All applicants must still be UK residents.
Hilary Banks, Chief Commercial Officer, Guardian said: “As a challenger brand, we’re always listening to adviser feedback. Our advice partners consistently tell us they love our award-winning products and want to recommend us to even more of their clients. One thing that was holding them back was our previous residency criteria, which was a barrier for clients who had recently moved to the UK. We’ve now made a change, making our protection more inclusive and accessible to more people.”
Paul Shearman, Proposition Director, Openwork, said: “We welcome this seemingly small, but important, change by Guardian which makes it easier for clients who’ve moved to the UK to apply for their life and critical illness cover. In our view, this approach to residency is fairer and more inclusive. It also gives advisers with clients who’ve moved here within the last 2 years a better range of covers to choose from for their protection recommendations.”
Guardian’s new criteria will be applied to any new quotes or applications from today. Advisers with clients who didn’t meet the old criteria, will be able to reapply from today if they wish. Full details of the updated policy terms and conditions are on Guardian’s website.
