Insurance giant Aviva has congratulated the financial advisors who have played a key part in ensuring families have at least some form of protection, by getting them to sign-up to the company’s free life cover for new parents initiative.

The Aviva free life cover was first launched in July 2009 and has since then provided over £50 million in free cover to new parents, some 30% of which have come via financial advisors.

Aviva explained the facts behind their free life cover, highlighting the fact that every year in the UK, 700,000 babies are born and some 36,000 people die leaving financial dependents. What’s more, of the UK’s five million families, 56% of them do not have adequate protection.

The Aviva free life cover scheme provides £10,000 free life cover per parent, per child, for a period of one year, from birth to first birthday.

Head of Protection at Aviva, Louise Colley, said of their free life cover: “It’s fantastic that 29% of registrations for our free cover came through Financial Advisers. We know that this is proving to be a real foot in the door for advisers, and recognise the importance of this as a conversation starter. All new parents want to know that their children will be provided for should the worst happen, and registering for a years’ worth of free cover with Aviva makes it really simple for them.

“We really want to encourage advisers to use this as an opportunity to stimulate the market to reduce the protection gap, even if this does not long term result in a sale for Aviva. We all recognise the huge scale of the protection gap and hope new parents cover provides advisers with a new reason to have the conversation about protection and be able to approach the delicate subject of supporting customer’s families should the worst happen.”

Guest Article by Neil Camp