Christophe Tamet has been named Legal & General’s new head of credit.

Earlier in his career Tamet worked within the chief investment officer of JP Morgan Chase as credit chief.

In his new role he will be directly responsible for Roger Bartley, L&G’s active fixed income chief.

The insurance firm has made the appointment to bolster the fixed income team, following a confident performance over the course of the last year and a half.

Bartley has welcomed the presence of Tamet’s and that it was a strong indicator that L&G was committed to improving the fixed income team.

Peter Graham has been named as Legal & General’s new managing director of their general insurance business.

Mr.Graham brings 15 years of insurance industry experience to the position, and during his career has served with both esure and Towergate as an executive.

He first joined the firm on 25 March 2008, and is based in Legal & General’s Birmingham office.

Friends Provident has reported the proportion of their critical illness claims not paid out as a result of non-disclosure reduced by a third to 6.5% during 2007. 

The amount of claims declined for non-disclosure during 2006 was 9.9% and the 2007 figures are the first since the insurer brought in the policy of paying a proportion of the claim when unrelated non-disclosure occurs.

A proportion of claims that were declined for non-disclosure last year was lower than the proportion declined for claimants that did not meet the policy conditions, which was 7%, down from 8.8% in 2006.

The claims that did pay out increased to 86.5% last year, up from 81.3% in 2006. In 2007 Friends Provident out a total of £35.7m for critical illness claims. Its figures also show that cancer is the most common cause for a claim and average age of a claimant is 44.

The average critical illness payout last year was more than £58,500 and the largest claim was £750,000.

Head of protection at Friends Provident, Mark Jones, said: ‘I am delighted that the three-pronged approach we have applied to our range of protection products of education, simplification and promoting a culture of fairness, is beginning to pay dividends. The improvement in the number of claims paid will help increase consumer confidence in protection products.’

Indexation can now be added at a fixed rate between 2% and 5% for life cover or critical illness cover on guaranteed rates or linked to the retail price index.

Bright Grey has also increased the maximum term for life cover or critical illness cover from 30 to 40 years.

Kevin Stevens, Head of intermediary sales said: ‘Adding indexation offers excellent value for money by maintaining the true value of a client’s protection. It also means that cover can be increased every year without the need for medical information.’

He adds: ‘Indexation is an immensely valuable option in the adviser’s toolkit. Selecting the indexation option, at no extra cost, gives their clients the added piece of mind that should they be ill during the term of the plan, they still have the ability to increase their cover.’

The Sunday Times has reported that JC Flowers is working on a revised takeover bid for Friends Provident.

Last week, the Takeover Panel intervened after the US private equity group’s informal offer of £3.5 billion was rejected by Friends Provident.

JC Flowers has until the end of the Month to table a forma bid and has been in conversation with a number of groups who may be interested in buying parts of the business.

Following last year’s failure of its merger negotiations with Resolution, Friends has been undertaking a strategic review that has led to the auction of its Lombard division.

Friends Provident has been up for sale since January.

Recent research has found that 20 million adults in the UK are without life cover or income protection insurance. The reason is not because it is unaffordable, but is simply due to apathy.

More than a third (37%) of people who responded to the Norwich Union survey said they did not have life cover because they haven’t got round to it or they have not thought about it.

The results of this survey are not at all suprising. Insurers and advisers are well aware that people do not wake up in the morning with the desire to purchase income protection or life cover. It is only when they take out a mortgage or become aware of someone who has suffered an illness that they might think about life or critical illness insurance.

Even then the uptake is poor, according to research by AXA, the average family is under-insured by £176,776 and three quarters of UK adults are under-insured by an average of £96,927.

The Health Insurance & Protection magazine suggests that one place protection could be encouraged is within the workplace:  ‘Using employers to actively target people’s protection needs seems like the next logical step’.

The protection specialists latest figures have shown that their Critical Illness payouts have risen by 20% between 2005 and 2007.

But equally the number of claims being declined has risen.

Zurich declined 12 per cent of critical illness claims in 2007, compared with 10 per cent in 2006.

The insurer found in 2007 3% of claims were declined due to non-disclosure and 9% were turned down due to the definition of an illness simply not being met. 

Cancer has remained the most common condition accounting for 55% of critical illness claims paid in 2007.

Heart attacks were the cause of 13% of critical illness claims paid out and strokes were the third most common condition, accounting for 6%.

Alan Lakey, of IFA Highclere Financial Services, says: ‘The trouble with critical illness and income protection is a lot of clients, and advisers, do not understand the definitions. A client may have had an operation for a blocked artery but the definition of the policy may only cover the client for two blocked arteries.’

Over the last year, Legal & General have paid out £110m in critical illness claims.

The critical illness claim average was for £60,000, and for a serious condition such as heart attacks, multiple sclerosis or even a terminal illness, the figures reveal almost 90% of claims were successful.

In 2006 the success rate was 83.3%, and this rose 88.2% in 2007.

Critical illness claims not paid out due to non-disclosure fell from 12.1% two years ago to just 7.7% in 2007.

The increase both in successful critical illness claims and the overall amount paid out is a strong sign of Legal & General’s commitment to lessening the number of claims declined, according to Bernie Hickman, the firm’s MD of Protection.

Such an approach should assist customers in believing that insurers will treat them fairly, Hickman has stated.

As well as the critical illness payouts, £179m was paid out in life insurance, at a rate of 96.3%.

Standard Life have reported a 43% profit rise in 2007.

The insurance company secured new business in high margin products while at the same time lowering costs.

Pre-tax profit rose 32%, to £714 million, despite investors withdrawing £249 million from policies that had not reached their maturity dates.

In reporting the results, Standard Life was also able to assure investors that it held no direct exposures to the US mortgage market.

Standard Life’s Chief Executive said: ‘We have beaten all our profitability and efficiency targets for 2007 and achieved record sales, a platform which we will build upon for further growth in years to come. Against an uncertain economic backdrop we have made a good start to 2008 and are working to improve our core profitability.’

Insurers are duping customers into wasting thousands of pounds on ‘useless, expensive’ policies, campaigners warned last night.

Consumer group Which? said some cover is vital, for buildings, house contents, life and cars.

But it said other policies were often unnecessary, were hard to claim on and rarely paid out.

Although they offered ‘peace of mind’, much of what they covered was already protected in law or by other policies.

Even though some policies offer cover against identity theft, any proven identity fraud losses would be paid by people’s banks.

Policies covering accidental death and injury may be covered under standard life insurance, while mobile phones are often included in home contents cover.

Tony Levene, of Which?, said: ‘You can buy insurance against almost any risk, even alien abduction. People should carry out a risk assessment of their own to make an informed choice.’