There is real innovation in the market as providers seek to drive income protection sales further.
This is according to Jennifer Gilchrist, protection industry affairs manager at Swiss Re this afternoon who was asked by Health & Protection about findings from the reinsurer’s Term & Health Watch report which indicated more muted sales growth of income protection policies with sales growing 11.9% to 266,994 policies sold in 2025. While an increase, this was not as high as in the previous year when sales in this product segment climbed 18% year-on-year.
Good sales growth
While acknowledging that IP sales growth was higher in 2024, Gilchrist noted that there has been good sales growth again in 2025.
“What is really coming through is we’re getting new providers coming into the market such as with simplified products,” Gilchrist said. “We are seeing more focus on the market.”
Foundation of protection portfolios
Gilchrist added that income protection is increasingly becoming the foundation of protection portfolios for customers.
“We’re really seeing products and providers looking at their products and trying to think about how they can simplify them, how they can make it easier for customers to come in and actually be able to understand income protection,” she continued.
“And the sales continue to grow. There’s quite a lot of work within the industry, various forums, the IPT Task Force, etc, that is helping to sustain that growth hopefully and is demonstrating helping to grow that and continue that growth over the years and hopefully that will continue.”
