I know it may not be a popular sentiment but I am glad to see the back of summer, such as it was. I ...
I know it may not be a popular sentiment but I am glad to see the back of summer, such as it was. I am always enthused by the first sign of autumn, if for no other reason than London's tube system becomes a little less like a mobile sauna.
Living in a city, autumn's first glimmering is generally increased traffic and fuller trains as the population puts the kids back in school and gets back to work. Good. As far as protection and health markets are concerned it has been a long and very quiet summer.
With all this time on my hands I have been asking the various protection and PMI providers I bump into on a regular basis what their focus will be for the rest of the year. It would seem the main players are still concentrating on business protection and income protection. It is not difficult to see why; both are heavily undersold and sales should be relatively easy to increase with a little effort, even in a market downturn, as their potential is untapped. This month's news and news analysis also highlight the shocking downturn in sales of other products - stand-alone critical illness in particular.
However, the question remains: are we likely to see a market downturn? I suspect an apocalypse is not really a worry for the majority. While the more than half (58%) of IFAs that sell mortgages will have seen a drop in customers sauntering through their doors, the sector and the protection market remain fairly upbeat. In this month's interview Andrew Strange, Aifa's policy director cites a positive IFA mood while this is borne out by Legal & General, which reports over 75% of advisers expect the protection markets to either improve or remain flat over the rest of the year.
The fact remains that, regardless of the economy, a solid market for independent impartial advice on financial products both for the individual and companies continues. If times get harder the sector can only grow in importance.
