Pacific Life Re and UnderwriteMe have partnered with Scottish Widows to smooth the protection insurance sales process for Lloyds Banking Group’s (LBG) 1,200 mortgage advisers working within the Halifax, Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland branches.

‘Plan and Protect’, LBG’s new life and critical illness product range was developed through a collaboration between Scottish Widows, Pacific Life Re and UnderwriteMe. Scottish Widows and Pacific Life Re worked together on the design of the product and proposition using extensive lab and customer research, with UnderwriteMe using its state of the art technology to create a process that is fast and effective for mortgage advisers to use.
At the heart of ‘Plan and Protect’ is a simple application process designed to save customers’ time, while clear language also makes the cover easy to understand. There are seven health and lifestyle questions, giving every customer an instant decision, and it takes less than five minutes to complete the underwriting journey.

Scott Cadger, Head of Protection Underwriting and Claims Strategy, Scottish Widows, said: “Customers taking out a mortgage often benefit from having protection insurance that covers them should something happen that puts their repayments at risk. The proposition we have built with Pacific Life Re delivers two key things: a product purpose-built for mortgage protection, with quality, simple definitions and engaging graphics and language; and a faster and more effective process for advisers, using UnderwriteMe technology. Ultimately, this is generating more great conversations than ever before, which is good news for our customers and for our business.”

Phil Jeynes, Head of Sales and Marketing at UnderwriteMe said: “It’s great to see how collaboration, together with industry-leading technology, can increase conversion rates and cut down on the difficulty of helping customers understand the importance of protection alongside their mortgage application. Lloyds Banking Group used our market-leading technology to give advisers a tool, which helps to make protection a seamless part of the mortgage conversation. We are proud to partner with major price comparison websites, specialist protection advice firms, mortgage brokers and now banks as we strive to make protection simpler for organisations and customers alike.”

James Tait, Head of Protection at Pacific Life Re said: “Giving Lloyds Banking Group’s customers access to a modern and efficient protection proposition that delivers great value is a critical part of our efforts to grow the protection market. We are really pleased to have worked with Scottish Widows and UnderwriteMe on this product innovation and we look forward to continuing our successful partnership with Scottish Widows.”