More than 40,000 fewer protection policies were sold in Q1 2024 than in the corresponding quarter of 2023, according to Gen Re.
The reinsurer’s Protection Pulse update for the first quarter of the year revealed 510,151 policies were sold in the first quarter, down from 551,618 in Q1 2023.
Policies sold were up from 487,754 in the final quarter of last year, however.
The data also revealed £196m in premiums were written in the first quarter of the year. This was down from £206m in Q1 2023 but up from £186m in the final three months of the year.
Term assurance and critical illness premiums written were both down 8% on the same quarter of last year. But underwritten whole of life (up 9%), guaranteed whole of life (up less than 1%) and income protection (up 8%) were all up on the Q1 2023.
On product market split, mortality accounted for 43%, with accelerated CI comprising 27% of the market, income protection 13%, whole of life guaranteed 7%, whole of life U/W 5% and standalone critical illness 4%.
*This article has been corrected after an earlier version stated that more than 50,000 fewer protection policies had been sold.