Old Mutual's head of protection Jefferies departs

Jefferies had started working at Old Mutual Wealth in March 2012 with responsibility for driving sales, marketing and proposition development.

Previously Jefferies held sales and marketing roles at Ageas Protect and Friends Provident.

A spokesperson for Old Mutual Wealth said: "Ian is heading off to pursue a new opportunity in the market and we wish him well.

"He will be working a notice period for 3 months so there will be no immediate change in the service we provide to advisers.

"We are committed to providing advisers with the best specialist sales team in the market and we are already recruiting for a replacement."

Emma Thomson, life office relations director at LifeSearch said: "We're sorry to see Ian leave Old Mutual Wealth. He helped implement some very positive changes for the market and was on our shortlist earlier this year at the Lifesearch Awards for Best Protection Leader after ensuring critical illness improvements were made available to existing customers.

"It's interesting to see another senior figure moving on. There has been so much change happening in leading positions within protection in the last couple of years and I wonder if we will start to see some stability going forward.

"Ian has certainly given the team a strong base on which to develop the proposition further and we wish him well for the future."