"The challenge we have is to get the protection gap more tangible and meaningful for consumers"

As the newly crowned king of protection following his Lifetime Achievement Award at the Protection Review 2008, Swiss Re’s Ron Wheatcroft, believes the recipe for success is providing a pretty basic but fundamental service.

Heading Swiss Re's work aimed at identifying and quantifying the life assurance and income protection gaps in the UK, and as principal author of its Insurance Report, Term & Health Watch and Group Watch series, he believes the recipe still needs an extra ingredient - in the form of people power.

The technical manager of Swiss Re Life & Health said: "We could just sit in an ivory tower and pontificate, but that is not our role. Our role adds value by taking on people’s comments.

"We have probably become so used to telling ourselves how bad we are that things can become self-fulfilling. We can spend many months focusing on how people trust us more, but the problem is much more fundamental, it is more about getting people thinking."

After working under the wing of Mercantile & General Re at the age of 20, Mr Wheatcroft stepped boldly into the financial field by taking on various roles in the processing and management of the administration of reinsurance business from the UK and international markets, before taking to technical projects, publications and client management.

With 39 years behind him, Mr Wheatcroft explained that this experience has given him a valuable insight into the financial markets. He said: "Working up the ranks has been evolutionary. But the market has changed dramatically, as now we have far fewer product providers on the market. Maybe that is a bad thing, because what we lose is some of the creative thinking that came from some of the smaller offices. What is nice is there are some new innovative players coming into the market."

So while new blood is seeping into the protection realm, Swiss Re Life & Health, Mr Wheatcroft claims, does well to pinpoint exactly what needs addressing, and the 58-year-old proudly hails its protection gap research as one of its key developments.

He said: "The protection gap is very much on the government’s agenda and people understand broadly what it is. However, we have managed to produce an objective measure that people can understand. The challenge we have - and we are beginning to get there - is to get the protection gap more tangible and meaningful for consumers.

"We have done the work where the protection gap is the greatest, so that is really important.”

The Insurance Report, which takes place every 18 months, is a strategic report of the life and health market. Having kicked off in 2002, and being co-authored by co-authored Mr Wheatcroft, it warned that cover worth at least an extra £2 trillion is needed to plug a life protection gap, which needed to be addressed "urgently".