SEP 2003
Beat The Crunch
It has been reported in a well know on-line press article that Critical Illness Insurance as a stand alone policy is due to change. The chance of getting a guaranteed rate on your premiums is dwindling, as more and more insurers are likely to either pull out of the CI market, or change to reviewable rates, which gives them the right to change your premium at their discretion.
Guaranteed CI policies are so-called because the quoted premium is the same for the whole life of the policy. If you have been thinking of starting a critical illness policy, then the advice is to do it sooner, rather than later, in order to ‘beat the crunch’.
Click for a Quote

SEP 2003
Scottish Provident limits Stand-Alone Critical Illness cover
From 1 October, the maximum amount of stand-alone critical illness cover Scottish Provident will be able to accept for new Self Assurance cases is £500,000.

AUG 2003
Norwich Union ups premiums for term assurance with CI option
Norwich Union is to increase premiums on all term assurance with guaranteed critical illness (CI) by an average of 1% from 18 August. The price hike follows an 18% increase on term with CI in July.

AUG 2003 -
Norwich Union next to join the reviewable CI market
Norwich Union has withdrawn its stand-alone guaranteed critical-illness offering, saying it will now review premiums every five years.
NU says it will continue offering guarantees on CI when it is combined with other products such as term or mortgage life insurance but that stand-alone guarantees are becoming too expensive for many consumers to afford.

AUG 2003
Zurich pull out of the protection market.
Zurich have announced that they will withdraw from the protection market on 27th August 2003 following a deal with Swiss Re. This follows the recent decision from Swiss Life to also pull out of the U.K protection market.

JUL 2003
Friends Provident to offer reviewable rates on critical illness contracts
Friends Provident have announced that all contracts including critical illness benefits will have both guaranteed and reviewable rates option with effect from 31st July.

JUL 2003
Swiss Life pull out of the protection market
Swiss Life (UK)'s individual operation will be closed to new business with immediate effect. This reflects the fact that individual protection is highly capital intensive and that Swiss Life Group needs to concentrate capital and management attention on its core businesses. ...

Sources include PremierConnections.co.uk.