The founder of critical illness (CI) cover has called on the UK protection market to step away from over-complicated sales processes and complex medical definitions and focus more on product innovation.

Speaking at a protection round table hosted by Scottish Widows last week, South African-born Marius Barnard, described the current system as convoluted and unnecessary, compared to other developed countries around the world.

Barnard said: “Providers are simply creating problems that are not there. The UK is the only country where definitions cause problems, and I just wonder whether it is creating problems that do not really exist. In other countries people are not sold CI cover, they willingly buy it.”

Barnard, who was a member of a team headed by his brother Professor Chris Barnard that performed the world’s first human heart transplant, developed the first critical illness product in 1983 to help his patients recover financially as well as physically.

He has since spent the last 20 years working with providers to develop policies in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Singapore and Malaysia.

Barnard said the industry needed to focus more on product innovation and called for the introduction of a stepped CI product that would administer payment based on the severity of the case. He also believed policies that recognised a commitment to a healthy lifestyle should be introduced. This type of product has already been introduced in the UK by Prudential for private medical insurance.

Nick Kirwan, protection market director at Scottish Widows, said while product innovation was something protection providers considered important, the need for specific medical definitions was important to protect providers and consumers. He said: “We have to work together as an industry to make it better for the consumer and this means ensuring medical definitions are clear and straightforward to understand.”

Kirwan believed this would help address problems with non-payment of claims due to non-disclosure, which has caused the unpopularity of CI cover in the past.

He also said providers would have to become more flexible as society changes and medical technology advances. Kirwan commented: “I do not doubt that in the next 20 years we will see claims from women with prostate cancer come through and providers need to be prepared for this.”