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Most life insurance and life assurance policies today are sold by intermediaries (often called brokers) which can be businesses set up to specialise in insurance, banks or building societies or traditional retailers who are simply trying to find new ways of making money from their customers.
Some life insurers do sell their policies direct to the public although they often do this on a limited basis and, contrary to the way other retail markets work, these policies can be more expensive when bought directly from the life insurer.
Intermediaries or brokers can nowadays offer life insurance and life assurance products from a single insurance company, a panel of insurance companies or from what is also described as ‘whole of market’, although in truth ‘whole of market’ is rarely the whole of the market and is just a way of describing a large panel of insurers which are prepared to sell their life insurance and life assurance products through the particular broker or intermediary.
For customers the benefit of using a broker who offers life insurance and life assurance policies from more than one life insurance company isn’t always obvious because not all brokers discount the basic cost of life insurance and life assurance policies. It is also true that not all brokers selling one life insurance company’s life insurance and life assurance policies offer discounts all of the time and therefore it pays to shop around.
At Direct Life we do provide discounts to customers on their life insurance policies and these are hard coded into our online and call centre quotations service.
07 June 2007 16:36:37
Norfolk and Norwich University hospital (N&N) is hoping to raise a £400,000 windfall to drastically reduce the number of heart attack fatalities in the region.
If the funds can be raised, a second catheter laboratory could be opened, allowing the introduction of a direct primary angioplasty service.
Such a service could save hundreds of heart attack patients - research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society Conference showed that less than three per cent of heart attack patients given primary angioplasty at the Harefield Hospital in Middlesex died.
Dr Liam Hughes, consultant cardiologist at the N&N confirmed the plans for a centre:
"We would like to move towards providing this sort of heart attack service during the week, during normal working house.
"It would not be 24 hours a day because there would not be enough staff, but for certain patients, it would undoubtedly be a possibility."
Around 600 of every 100,000 men in the UK suffer a heart attack every year, while 200 of every 100,000 women are affected.
30 April 2007 12:10:59
The loss of long-term memory due to Alzheimer's disease could be reversed, according to new research.
A study using mice at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute showed the regaining of long-term memories through the use of sensory stimuli and a neuronal growth treatment.
The research team at the Institute found that a protein called p25 played a part in neurodegeneration and engineered mice in which they could activate the protein at will.
The mice had undergone 'fear-conditioning' tests, but after the induction of p25, forgot how to carry out these tasks.
However, some of the mice were then placed into a stimulating environment - with changing colours and textures - and displayed better recovery of their long-term memory than mice that had been in normal cages.
Speaking to research journal Nature, team leader Li-Huei Tsai confirmed that the mice showed similarly impressive recovery rates after the testing of histone deacetylase inhibitors.
"This recovery of long-term memory was really the most remarkable finding. It suggests that memories are not really erased in such disorders as Alzheimer's, but that they are rendered inaccessible and can be recovered," she said.
She added: "I believe that these findings could have particular significance for treatment of people who already have advance neurodegenerative disease."
"Most current treatments seem to be aimed at affecting the early stages of the disease. But our mouse model shows that even when there has been a significant loss of neurons, it is still possible to improve learning and memory."
24 April 2007 15:23:09
Leading charity Cancer Research UK has endorsed a new report from the British Medical Association (BMA).
The BMA report, entitled 'Breaking the cycle of children's exposure to tobacco smoke', advises the enforcement of stricter measures against tobacco sales, including banning ten-packs of cigarettes and insisting on licenses for cigarette vendors.
Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, praised the report, stressing the importance of a determined effort to "break the cycle of tobacco addiction, disability and death".
"Smoke-free legislation is a fantastic step towards protecting everyone from the dangers of second-hand smoke," she said.
"The measures proposed by the BMA are a serious and welcome step towards protecting the next generation and consigning tobacco to the history books."
The report follows the recent discovery by the Daily Telegraph that smoking can significantly increase your life insurance premium.
A joint life term assurance policy with Legal & General costs £29.04 for a non-smoker, compared to £61.48 for the smoker's premium, while a whole of life policy with Liverpool Victoria will cost a smoker £216.93.
