Health & Protection produced three in-depth reports during 2024 covering the international private medical insurance (IPMI), individual PMI and individual protection markets.
Strong growth in the PMI market, rising optimism in the IPMI sector, and a shift towards alternatives to traditional trust arrangements in individual protection were among the key findings in Health & Protection’s 2024 report series.
The comprehensive reports gave a valuable and detailed look at the current state and future direction of health and protection insurance markets.
IPMI
In May Health & Protection published the third edition its iPMI Report and Provider Service Ratings 2024.
Providers and advisers operating in the international private medical insurance (IPMI) market are increasingly positive in the sector despite significant challenges over the last year, according to Health & Protection’s IPMI Report.
Responses to Health & Protection’s research were overwhelmingly positive about market activity over the previous 12 months and for prospects over the next few years.
Intermediaries were even more confident than last year with more than three-quarters saying they were positive about the sector.
The upswell in positivity continued into the outlook for the next two years with advisers being even more optimistic in the short-to-medium term position for the sector.
Overall, 81.5% of respondents expected the IPMI market to be either fairly strong or very strong in two years’ time. This was up slightly from 80.7% a year previous.
However, providers expected premium rates to continue growing steeply at more than 10% over the next three years.
This was reflected in market challenges, with increasing premiums and medical inflation the top concern for intermediaries and providers, with the sustainability of the market being questioned.
Individual PMI
In August Health & Protection published its third Individual PMI report, which showed the market grew by 11% as more than 1.5m lives were covered.
Membership of private medical insurance (PMI) had grown by more than 11% for a third consecutive year, according to data from providers.
The report found providers were continuing to see significant demand in the underwritten PMI market with lives covered estimated to exceed 1.5 million by the end of 2023.
When including members of Benenden Health, which operates a different non-underwritten model of health insurance, the total number of lives covered reaches almost 2.4 million.
Illustrating the scale of the market’s growth over the last three years, five providers have seen their membership numbers collectively rise from 459,249 in 2020 to 651,810 in 2023.
This was an additional 192,000 customers in three years and growth of 42% in that time.
Individual protection
In October, Health & Protection published its Individual Protection Report, which revealed a sluggish market with a slight fall in overall numbers in force and in new business, while income protection bucked the trend.
It also found that barely one in three policies are in trust as alternatives show significant take-up.
Alternative options to trust arrangements appear to be highly popular with advisers and their clients for securing life insurance payouts.
Data supplied by six insurers showed those which used alternatives to trusts saw generally higher take-up of those arrangements than trusts alone.
The figures also revealed how few policies are included in trusts or other arrangements with only one of the six, having more than half its new life plans secured this way.
For other insurers, the figure ranged between 21% and 37% for new business.
When considering all in-force policies the figure was smaller ranging between 20% and 34%, although Guardian was again the standout with 74.5% of policies.
