Looking both ways

A year ago, the protection industry was looking forward to a challenging but potentially fruitful future. Pension term assurance (PTA) and the implementation of the Association of British Insurers' (ABI) new critical illness (CI) model wordings were opportunities to regenerate consumer faith in protection. Unfortunately, the year will be remembered for bad publicity about declined claims and the well-documented PTA U-turn. Adopting the old adage 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' cost the protection industry millions, as it headed up the pension term cul-de-sac. It did, however, prove...