More than 1,000 more protection policies were sold in the second quarter of 2024 compared to a year ago, but the market remained significantly below its 2023 level, according to Gen Re.
The reinsurer’s latest Protection Pulse update showed 492,408 policies were sold from April to June, up from 491,125 in Q2 2023 and reversing the decline earlier this year.
The increase of 1,303 completions was a distinct improvement over the first quarter when more than 40,000 fewer protection policies were sold compared to Q1 2023.
Despite the improvement resulting in 1,002,579 sales for the first half of 2024, that remained 40,164 or 3.8% down on the 1,042,743 completions during the corresponding period in 2023.
The data also showed £384m in premiums, on an annual premium equivalent (APE) basis, were written for the two quarters of 2024. This was down 3.3% from £397m for the first two quarters of 2023, a difference of £13m.
Term assurance premiums were down by 9% for the two quarters, with critical illness premiums also down by 2%.
On the positive side income protection was up by 8%, while underwritten whole of life was up by 6% and guaranteed whole of life was up by 3%.
On product market split, mortality accounted for 43%, with accelerated CI comprising 27% of the market, income protection 14%, whole of life guaranteed 6%, underwritten whole of life 5% and standalone critical illness 4%.