Protection sales hit in 2004

Professional Adviser
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Industry sales of protection policies fell across all product lines last year but worst hit was critical illness take-up which fell by almost a third and income protection sales were down a quarter.

In their latest Term & Health Watch report, Swiss Re reveals new UK life and health insurance sales fell generally in 2004 although mortgage protection products performed better than non-mortgage protection offerings. Critical illness saw the most significant fall as sales dropped 30% from almost 1.1m sales to over 700,000, while non-mortgage related CI plummeted 46% compared with an 18.7% fall in mortgage-related CI, as Swiss Re suggests the unstable market prompted many price and product feature changes which might not be looked upon favourably by the client. Income protection sales...

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