Protection Watch: Kevin Carr's verdicts on five recent developments

Time for heroes

2016 ended on a welcome high for the protection industry, with reports of rising sales across most of the market. Protection sales jumped by more than 8% in the third quarter, according to Touchstone, while, year on year, overall protection sales were up by 25%. Reinsurer Gen Re also recently reported a significant increase in protection sales in the first half of the year. This year, we will likely see more simple products - for example, AIG Key3 - more use of rewards and benefit packages, a greater focus on income protection, more use of technology such as apps and e-signatures, a wider focus on engagement and well-being, and more insuretech start-ups. On the product front, companies will look to adapt and personalise their existing propositions, hopefully focusing on growing the wider market overall.

Verdict: Promising lead

Talking heads

Customers should receive regular updates reminding them of the details about their protection cover, according to the Protection Distributors Group and the Finance & Technology Research Centre Protection Forum. At present, advisers say too few policyholders receive regular details about their cover and they are calling for simple statements to be issued confirming the cover details, with a prompt to review their cover and contact the intermediary firm.

Master Adviser partner Roy McLoughlin said: "As a holistic financial adviser, annual statements play a valuable role in helping me service clients and regularly review their financial position. I can inform a client about their pension, which will often end in an increase in premium and quite frequently the same result with their ISAs. Protection should underpin their savings and investments but the lack of statements from most protection providers is both unsatisfactory and makes it difficult and more expensive to give clients the advice they need."

Verdict: Promising lead 

The Robots

Workers at Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance in Japan are set to be replaced by artificial intelligence that can calculate pay-outs to policyholders. According to reports, more than 30 members of staff are likely to be made redundant by March this year from the company's headquarters in Tokyo. Japanese newspaper The Mainichi said the insurance firm would introduce an AI system based on IBM Japan's Watson, which according to IBM is a "cognitive technology that can think like a human" and "can analyse and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video".

Verdict: Promising lead or back to the lab? Probably a bit of both

Do you remember the first time?

British Friendly has again been the first insurer to publish claims statistics for last year. The income protection specialist paid more than 96% of all claims in 2016 with more than half (52%) approved in one day or less. The most common reasons for claiming in 2016 were orthopaedics (musculoskeletal conditions), viral illness/respiratory and psychiatric conditions.

Verdict: Promising lead

Money's too tight to mention

According to research by MoneySuperMarket, more than a fifth of British adults are worried about daily money issues. The poll of 2,000 adults found stressed people suffer from a range of emotional consequences, including feeling panicky (37%), overwhelmed (33%), disappointed (31%), exhausted (27%) and embarrassed (24%). The survey also found 46% of UK adults are frequently or occasionally worried about their finances, while younger people generally suffer more than the older demographic, with 58% of 18 to 34 year olds stating they frequently or occasionally worry about the state of their finances, compared to 30% of those aged 55 or over.

Verdict: Back to the lab