The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its pure protection market overview revealing more than 22 million in-force policies across all individual product types.
The market overview sets out a factual overview of the retail pure protection sector in the UK which will form the FCA’s understanding of the markets for its subsequent analysis, the regulator said.
It covers the main products, distribution channels, firm participants, customers, regulatory landscape and market developments.
Among the review’s findings was data from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) revealing that term assurance (1,065,000) led the way in terms of number of new policies issued by product type in 2023, followed by accelerated critical illness (436,000) and income protection (247,000).
There were 22,038,000 in-force policies in 2023, according to the data which includes all retail products.
Whole of life contributed the largest share of in‑force policies (36%) but there were few new policies sold.
Term assurance followed with 33% of in‑force policies and was the most commonly purchased pure protection product in 2023.
When looking into the number of new business written on an advised and non‑advised basis in 2023, advised sales dominate, with 97% of income protection sales conducted through an adviser, followed by accelerated critical illness (82%) and critical illness (75%).
Conversely, just 3% of guaranteed-accepted over 50s sales were conducted through an adviser in 2023.
Turning to insurer market shares using new premium (sales) data that the ABI have received from firms and is displayed at an annual level for the past four years, the data shows that the provision of protection insurance is concentrated among five firms, generally around 80% overall and often higher.
In July the regulator revealed it would be publishing two papers – the market study and consumer research in Q3 2025, ahead of its interim report scheduled for the end of the year.
