Health & Protection continues its review of the year with a look back at Q2 during which Aegon exited the protection market, Swiss Re published its latest term and health watch report, Health & Protection held its second annual IPMI Summit and we celebrated Pride Month.
April
The second quarter of the year kicked off with Guardian’s roll out of its first income protection (IP) product.
But the month would also see the exit of Aegon from the protection sector with Royal London acquiring Aegon UK’s individual protection line of business.
And there was another exit with the sector bidding a fond farewell to AIG Life marketing director Sue Helmont, who retired after almost four decades in the industry.
April also saw Health & Protection report on City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) revelation that it had investigated 18 claims of opportunistic insurance fraud between February and March, as soaring inflation triggered a rise in fraud.
IFED told Health & Protection these claims included two related to private medical insurance (PMI), with an estimated total value of £38,302.
Health & Protection published our second international PMI report featuring exclusive research of advisers and insurers revealing a sector where confidence was soaring.
And as the month came to a close the Women in Protection conference took place where Andrew Parker, people and culture leader at LifeSearch, revealed the advice firm now advertises all of its jobs internally and externally as job shares, full time, part time and with the offer of hybrid working.
May
In May shortlists for the UK Health & Protection Awards 2023 provider categories were revealed after advisers voted to support their favoured providers.
In the week after the coronation Health & Protection held our second annual IPMI Summit at which Benjamin Bader, associate professor in international human resource management at Newcastle University Business Management School, revealed the global pandemic had driven a shift from longer term to shorter term assignments, with knowledge transfer activities being especially targeted.
The month also saw Axa Health launch a modular private medical insurance (PMI) plan for individual and family customers with no compulsory core option required.
And at the end of the month property expert and former A Place In the Sun presenter Jonnie Irwin was the subject of AIG Life’s first OneChat podcast, during which he expressed his regret at not taking out critical illness cover following conversations with his financial adviser and a subsequent terminal cancer diagnosis.
June
June began with news that Health & Protection’s team had grown with the appointment of Ricky Browne as deputy editor.
June is also Pride month and we kicked off the festivities with an interview with Amy Potter, protection team manager at London & Country.
She spoke about feeling initially lost in a predominantly male and heterosexual industry, her delight at seeing the sector offer diversity training and about an incident in which she fought to get the right outcome for a transgender client.
The month also saw Swiss Re publish its latest Term & Health Watch report which revealed Individual protection insurance sales in the UK fell by 7.8% in 2022 – reversing the rebound the market experienced in 2021.