The perils of misreading the regulator

At first glance, the FCA's interim report on the pure protection market looks like a victory for loaded premiums. No regulatory intervention, no finding of consumer harm and no immediate challenge to a business model that many have long defended. Those manufacturers and distributors who offer and use loaded premiums may feel they have won. They may even feel slightly smug. They have not and should not. What they have secured is something much narrower: a regulator that has not yet been able to prove harm using the data available. That is not the same as being right and it is certainly...