A life insurance firm recently launched a brand new online plan which offers life with serious illness cover or life cover at a lower rate.

Known as the Essentials Plans, this life insurance policy includes an option to upgrade the current insurers plan and will be available to all intermediaries in UK.

By removing certain features from the current plan, a 3-10% reduction in its rate has been achieved. These features include immediate cover, guaranteed insurability and automatic children’s cover.

The Essentials Plan is being launched at several national protection roadshows.

Director of the company’s protection development, Kevin Carr, said at the London event that the purpose for doing this was to expand the choice yet stay true to the company’s core value of severity based cover and vitality.

Carr speculated that launching the Essentials plan at the London event would help the firm gain a high position in portals. In turn, this would lead to increased discussions between consumers and advisers regarding the severity based critical illness cover.