Protection

Lifesearch has bucked the trend of declining protection sales with a significant growth in business last year.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) spent nearly £400m on management expenses in the 2010/11 year as it took in nearly £1bn in levies and paid out over £535m in compensation.

Aviva's share price fell 3.12% today after it announced it will sell three of its overseas arms to MetLife.

Critical illness (CI) and mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) are among the most complicated financial products for consumers to understand, the ABI has found.

Bright Grey paid out 91% of critical illness (CI) claims in the last six months of 2011.

Workplace stress has reached a four-year high with British workers being the most stressed compared to colleagues in some of the world's biggest economies, a new report has found.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is warning consumers against using claims management companies to retrieve money from mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI).

The coming year promises to be a tough one for the private healthcare sector, according to a new report from analyst Laing and Buisson.

Healix has voiced support for the use of open referrals within the private medical insurance (PMI) market but warned that insurers need to be more transparent about the process.

Advisers have given the Treasury's simple products initiative a tentative thumbs up while recognising that the financial services industry is overly complicated.