Education needed over Life Assurance Cover
More needs to be done to get people to buy Life Assurance Cover, according to a report from Swiss Re.
The 32-page Term and Health Watch report showed that sales of individual term life assurance, critical illness cover and whole of life policies rose last year. New whole of life business increased by 16.8 per cent to 371,467 policies, compared to 318, 078 in 2009, while critical illness sales showed a more modest increase of 0.8 per cent.
However income protection sales fell 5.6 per cent to 110,743, compared to 117,288 in 2009.
Ron Wheatcroft, co-author of the report, said, “This year could be difficult but reductions in welfare spending in the next few years could provide great opportunities for the insurance market in the longer term.
“In the meantime it will be important to keep getting out simple and unambiguous messages about the need for people to purchase protection. The industry has made progress in communicating with consumers but more needs to be done.”
Despite a fall in mortgage lending, term business sales rose by 2.2 cent, totalling £1.54m policies, while overall term sales through IFAs and independent distribution channels rose by 7.3 per cent.