More than 102,000 fewer protection policies were sold in 2023 when compared with 2022, according to Gen Re.
The reinsurer’s Protection Pulse update for the full year 2023 revealed 102,163 fewer protection policies were sold over the year, with 2,013,067 policies sold in 2023 – down from 2,115,230 in 2022*.
However, there was more positive news on the income protection front which was up 16% in policy sales on the previous year.
Standalone critical illness, underwritten whole of life and guaranteed whole of life also increased sales by 6%, 31% and 14% respectively.
In contrast the term life insurance and accelerated critical illness product sets both saw 10% drops in sales to 1,077,000 and 422,000 respectively – accounting for the sizeable fall in overall figures.
The final quarter of the year also produced a marked downturn with 467,754 policies sold in compared with 520,991 in Q4 2022 – down by 53,237 – and the third consecutive quarter with a drop.
Premiums up
However, £776m in premiums were written in 2023, up from £760m in 2022 though premiums were down to £186m in Q4 2023 from £195m in the final quarter of the previous year.
IP premiums written rose 23%, with underwritten whole of life (up 23%) and guaranteed whole of life (up 21%) also witnessing significant growth.
Again term assurance (down 2%) and critical illness (down 4%) proved more challenging markets.
On product market split, mortality accounted for 45%, with accelerated CI comprising 27% of the market, income protection 13%, whole of life guaranteed 6%, whole of life U/W 5% and standalone critical illness 4%.
*This story has since been updated due to a calculation error on the initial chart. The updated chart can be seen below.
