The concerns arose following heavy promotion by Standard Chartered Bank of a product it provides from Zurich called My Life Protect.
Some IFAs have claimed it is being sold at a lower cost than a similar product offered by Zurich to them called Futura.
Both products are billed as flexible, unit-linked, whole-of-life protection policies.
Walter Jopp, chief executive, Middle East of Zurich Insurance Company said there were substantial differences between the two products, with the IFA offering having many more features.
“As you would expect, the IFA world needs a more sophisticated product which is able to be adaptable to suit holistic financial planning. A bank is more transactional, and sometimes almost execution-only, and therefore uses a slightly simplified version,” said Jopp.
“So, there’s different pricing for different products in the market,” he said. “That’s pretty normal and standard across all multi-national and global insurers.”
Jopp said the Futura product offered more currencies than the My Life Protect contract, a different minimum entry age, differences in the single premiums allowed and different critical illness levels.
“We’ve added children’s critical illness to the IFA product, so IFAs can use it as part of their financial planning. There are also different accidental death benefits.
“It’s factually incorrect to say it’s the same product with two prices,” Jopp stressed.
Jopp also noted that Zurich was investing $5m (£3.8m, €4.3m) in the Middle East on IT developments to allow the company to amend or change its products faster to get more propositions to the market more quickly.
He also highlighted that Zurich had recently increased non-medical limits for life cover and family income benefit on all its protection products to $750,000.
“This is the highest non-medical limit in the Middle East,” Jopp said.
