Cirencester Friendly is to increase new business introductory commission rates for certain individual income protection contracts on 1 February.

The contracts in question are the Income Assured Plus and My Earnings Insurance (guaranteed level premium option).

An increase of just under 15% applies to Income Assured Plus and 20% on My Earnings Insurance level premium.

The current rate of new business introductory commission for My Earnings Insurance contracts with annually escalating premiums remains unchanged.

There will be no increase in premium rates for Income Assured Plus but level premiums payable on the My Earnings Insurance contract will rise by 6% for new Members that join the Society after 1 February 2016, although pipeline business will not be immediately affected.

Existing Members holding a My Earnings Insurance contract with level premiums will know that the guaranteed premium rates set by the Society when they joined remain unchanged.

Paul Hudson (pictured), chief executive at Cirencester Friendly, said: “We rely on intermediaries to introduce new business to the Society and we want to make sure they are well rewarded for that.

“In addition to these new business commission rate changes we will continue to work on developing further opportunities for advisers to provide for the needs of their clients and be suitably rewarded for placing business with us”.

The Income Assured Plus contract, which was launched in 2006, follows the traditional ‘Holloway Principle’ which combines income replacement insurance with an electable option to build a capital sum payable at the maturity of the contract. As it contains a capital option the contract is classified as a retail investment.

My Earnings Insurance, launched in 2014 is the Society’s first pure income protection contract. It provides a range of options allowing advisers to tailor the contract to the client’s needs. It is available through financial advisers as well as mortgage and general insurance brokers.