Product news

Co-op home package
Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) has launched CIS Home Options, which combines different types of insurance cover in one umbrella policy.

The package is designed to be flexible and has four main options. These are buildings, contents, caravan and travel insurance.

Customers can also add HomeRescue Plus to CIS Home Options Package, so cover can be added to buildings and content insurance.

European broker survey
A survey of European brokers by Goodhealth Worldwide has criticised the company's claims and documentation processing systems, but backed its product base and marketing strategy.

Goodhealth chief executive Martin Garcia said the company has decided to tackle the problem head on, by offering the brokers the firm promise that documentation and claims will be issued within a maximum of 15 days.

The survey showed 84% of respondents say Goodhealth's product benefits and price were either good or excellent.

Of those surveyed 88% gave approval for the clarity and design of policy documents and 74% for promotional material.

But 59% of brokers and agents would like more travel and term products from Goodhealth.

Claims Direct sale
Claims Direct has announced it has sold Sailpool, a non-trading subsidiary.

It has sold it to an undisclosed party for £1.65m cash after costs.

Claims Direct chief executive Ronnie Henderson said: "The injection of cash will be used as working capital for a number of ongoing projects."

The net asset value of Sailpool at the date of sale was nil.

Fairchild web poll
In last week's Insurance Times web poll we asked you how the industry should respond to last week's Fairchild decision.

In a landslide result, 56.4% of people voted for setting up a no-fault compensation/reinsurance pool.

Pushing for an employers' liability legislation change was the second most popular solution with 21.7% of people voting for it, while each company increasing reinsurance and reserves came a close third with 17.7% of the votes.

A small number sat on the fence, with just 4.1% of people voting for `don't know'.

New Bupa scheme
Bupa has launched a scheme under which clients who have pre-funded their long-term care can claim back some of their lump sum payment following receipt of state nursing care benefit.

Bupa says this refund option is designed to protect people from paying too much for their care.

The amount of free care available from the state is determined by an assessment when someone needs to receive long term care.

The new refund option will apply once this state nursing entitlement has been determined.

This is combined with the cover available through their pre-funded insurance.

If the client has more funds available than is necessary to cover the total cost of their care, Bupa will refund the difference.