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Discover Financial Services plans to add more insurance products to its menu, alongside the income-loss and disability-coverage service it introduced this week (CardLine, 8/18). However, one analyst warns Discover is taking a risk if it strays too far from its core payments business. Discover's Income Gap Protection provides consumers with monthly payments of $500 for three to six months if they lose their jobs, become disabled or need to take unpaid family leave. The cost is $19.75 for individuals or $34.75 for a joint policy. Central States Indemnity Co. of Omaha is providing the coverage, and Discover receives a share of profits, Discover says. Karin Giffney, Discover vice president of protection products, tells CardLine consumers have embraced Discover's growing array of insurance products, including life, homeowners' and automotive coverage. She says Discover hopes to add more insurance-related products to the lineup. Discover markets the products to its cardholders online, via telemarketing and through direct mail. Scott Strumello, an associate at Westbury, N.Y.-based Auriemma Consulting Group, tells CardLine that while card marketers offering life insurance is nothing new, Discover "seems to have hit on something that's a little different here, and being first to market with anything is a big advantage." But Discover should avoid stuffing its pipeline with too many unrelated products, he warns. "There is a fine line between offering useful, well-timed products and overwhelming customers by offering them too many things that are not connected to your core business."
