A television advert for life insurance offered by supermarket giant ASDA has been branded “misleading” and banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
It said the commercial for ASDA's over-50s life cover was confusing because it inaccurately suggested customers would never pay more in premiums than they would receive in a successful claim.
The advert focused on the minimum premium amount of £5 but the ASA said it did not make clear that promise only applied to a £14.59 ‘capped' premium.
A voice-over used during the advert said: "You can't buy this type of cover for less anywhere else, and because it's ASDA I can always make sure that I'd never pay more for cover than it'll pay out. So I'll never be out of pocket".
On-screen text read: "Unless you cap your premiums you must keep paying for life, and may pay more than you get out. If you stop paying early cover stops and you won't get anything back".
The ASA concluded the advert was misleading. "We considered that, although the relevant information did appear in the on-screen text, the context contradicted the implication given in the rest of the ad," it said.
"It was not clear that the statement ‘and because its ASDA I can always make sure that I'd never pay more for cover that it'll pay out' only applied to capped premiums. We concluded that the ad was misleading."
ASDA Financial Services Ltd (ASDA) said the ad clearly referenced all of the product characteristics, including the £5 'from' price at which the insurance premiums were available.
It also said it made clear the capped premium prices, the age restrictions and that, if the premium payments stopped, there would be no pay-out.
Read more: http://www.ifaonline.co.uk/ifaonline/news/1894800/misleading-asda-life-cover-banned#ixzz14mHLEIuD
IFA Online - News, blogs and analysis for IFAs. Visit the website now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ouch, not the best of starts for Asda and their invasion of the life insurance market. The ASA seem to be keeping a close eye on the supermarkets and so they should, misleading information about the life insurance market is the last thing the industry needs from the greedy supermarkets, barging in and offering one size fits all, sunstandard policies.
No comments:
Post a Comment