The chairman of the Association of Financial Mutuals (AFM) has called for the introduction of auto enrolment for protection to particularly help support the self-employed population.
AFM chairman and Cirencester Friendly CEO Andy Morris (pictured) also identified widening access to cash plans to provide a more affordable route to healthcare.
Speaking at the Insurance Innovators Summit Morris revealed the AFM has three areas of key attention: calling on government to create a more tax efficient savings scheme, tackling the UK’s protection gap and widening access to affordable healthcare.
Protection gap
“The protection gap is a real problem in the UK, it’s a problem across the world, but particularly in the UK,” Morris said.
“In terms of the self-employed, the nature of people’s work is changing.”
Morris added that large numbers of those individuals are unprotected – particularly groups like tradespeople who tend to be the main breadwinners in their household.
“If they fall off a ladder and break their leg and can’t work, that’s a massive problem for those people to pay the mortgage,” Morris explained.
“So there’s a definite area to focus on.
“If I was to go bold in terms of what that could look like, think about pensions and what auto enrolment has done for the world of pensions.
“If you could look forward and envisage a protection product that was auto-enrolled, that would make a massive difference to the type of people we’re talking about.”
Affordable healthcare
Against stubbornly high NHS waiting lists, Morris called on more affordable access to healthcare.
“If you could make that affordable for those people who need to be looked after and who can access it,” he said.
“Cash plans sit within the AFM, they can be expanded to cover more healthcare options, then we see that as a way in which people can get better access to the protection they need.
“The overarching thing is what initiatives and innovations can we produce that can make sure we are fit for the next generation.”