British Friendly

With sales of individual IP on the slide, industry is agreed something needas to be done. However, as Nicola Culley discovers, opinion is divided as to how to reverse the decline.

Product innovation is a term I continue to hear regarding income protection (IP). What do we need to do as an industry to engage the millions of people with a pressing need and ensure IP sales gather pace?

The current picture for protection sales is mixed as the industry treads the last month to gender neutralisation.

There has been no change or bias in the proportion of protection sales so far in the run up to gender neutralisation, an underwriting firm has reported.

An underwriting outsourcing company will be publishing updates on the number of female and male policies sold in the run up to the gender-neutral deadline and beyond.

Income protection sales have not been benefiting from the potential business opportunity created by the Gender Directive, British Friendly has said.

British Friendly has been added to Sesame's approved list of protection providers.

British Friendly's short-term income protection (IP) product is now available on Avelo's Exchange portal.

British Friendly registered more than 800 advisers, received 2,295 intermediary applications and wrote annual premiums in excess of £650,000 since launching BFS Protect in March 2011.

British Friendly Society has become the second insurer to add its name to COVER's campaign to reform the assessment of claims for income protection (IP).