Legal & General Retail has updated its Protection proposition, improving its Critical Illness offering.

The changes include:

Increased payments made for Children’s Critical Illness Extra (from £30,000 to £35,000), and the following additional benefits:

• Terminal Illness (from £10,000 to £35,000)
• Family Accommodation (from £1000 to £3000)
• Funeral Cover (from £5000 to £10,000)
• Improving Guaranteed Insurability Options (GIOs) across all products to allow larger increases of cover and more opportunities to revise cover following changes to the customer’s life.
• Changed definitions for cancer, heart attack and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease. These enhancements follow the Association of British Insurers (ABI) recommendations and have been designed to facilitate better customer outcomes.

All changes will apply to policies bought from 26th March 2023.

Legal & General’s core Critical Illness product offers comprehensive cover, while Critical Illness Extra and Children’s Critical Illness Extra offer options for those that want more protection and are exclusive to intermediaries.

The updates to GIOs across all protection products give clients the flexibility to adapt their cover to meet their changing lifestyles without answering further medical questions for an expanded range of life events.

All Legal and General protection products include additional support through Umbrella Benefits, a package of value-added services and optional benefits, allowing advisers to build a plan around their customers that’s right for them. These range from personalised practical and emotional telephone support from a registered RedArc nurse who can help with chronic and physical illness, trauma, relationship breakdowns and care concerns. To Private Diagnostics (giving quick access to specialist consultants) and Fracture Cover. It’s something customers can access on a regular basis and allows them to supplement their NHS support.

The bespoke benefits of Wellbeing Support are offered as standard via intermediaries, making tailored practical and emotional support for physical and mental health conditions readily available.

Julie Godley, director of intermediary, retail protection, Legal & General Retail, said: “At Legal & General, we are committed to supporting advisers in giving their customers help when they need it most. We listened to feedback from intermediaries around changing customer need and in response we have made these important updates.

“We understand that lives change, sometimes unexpectedly, and the updates to our Critical Illness products and GIOs allow advisers to offer their clients the flexibility to adapt the cover to meet their needs.

“Helping advisers to protect and support their clients is central to what we do, and we work with them to provide the tools and knowledge they need to support people in making better-informed decisions, reach good customer outcomes and further demonstrate the value of their advice.”