More than 11 and a half million individual protection policies were in force at the end of 2024, the latest Health & Protection Individual and Business Protection Report has found.
The figures cover 13 major providers in the UK individual protection market and apply to people covered for life insurance, critical illness, income protection (IP) or business protection.
The figures show the UK protection market took a year of stabilisation in 2024, recovering from the difficult 24 months before, although this has predominantly been focused on retention rather than sales.
It has also been driven by another year of strong growth in the income protection market with other product areas still barely treading water.
On a like-for-like basis among insurers who reported for both 2024 and 2023, 11.76 million individual protection policies were in force in 2024, up by 560,563 or 5% from 11.2 million a year earlier.
Like-for-like new business sales across the market recovered to just above par with an increase of 4,134 or 0.3% to 1,253,031 from 1,248,897.
The full results and analysis can be found in the Health & Protection Individual and Business Protection Report which is available for all advisers, intermediaries and brokers to download for free from this link or by clicking on the front cover below.
