Welcome to the latest edition of the Paradigm Protect Newsletter! As ever, we try to bring you some different perspectives through a range of topical articles from Providers, as well as assessing the protection market as a whole. In this edition there are some thought-provoking statistics about the make-up of the UK workforce which gives rise to a host of opportunities in the Individual, Group and Healthcare space. It is also ‘Claims Season’ when most Providers inform us of their claims results for 2023, and whilst I do not intend to directly repeat anything you may have seen in the press over the past few weeks, there are some interesting takeaways from a selection of Providers I will highlight below. In addition, I’ll highlight some of the innovations in the protection space in terms of products and the increasing value that third party Providers add to our industry too. Firstly though, I must thank you all for your continued support of Paradigm Protect. We were over the moon to win ‘Customer Excellence: Service Providers’ at the Legal & General Quality awards in May, and we were also awarded highly commended in the ‘Outstanding Service Provider Performance’ as well. We are grateful to everyone who has supported us and we are delighted to have our hard work recognised in this way. Market Let’s begin with the market in general by looking at the 2023 Swiss Re survey published in May. They showed that in 2023, some 1,997,450 new Term assurance, Whole Life, Critical Illness and Income Protection (IP) policies were sold, a decrease of 5.5% compared to 2022. There was a decline in sales of all Term policies from the previous year, except in the area of Relevant Life which was up 11.4% - more on that later! Increased regulatory pressures seem to have had an effect, as non-advised sales were down from 50% of total Term sales in 2022, to 35% in 2023. When we dig a little deeper into these numbers, there are some real positives for the independent sector, which still drives the majority of sales. It is not surprising that sales are down given the challenges being faced in the mortgage market during 2023. The clear winner in terms of product sales in 2023 was IP with a 10% increase in total policies sold in 2023 compared to 2022. This is certainly a growing trend with a greater focus now on a clients ability to cope financially during a period of illness as opposed to incapacity. Mike Allison Director of Protection Paradigm Protect Protection Market Update 04 SUMMER PROTECT NEWSLETTER
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