Zurich UK Life’s retail protection market share has almost doubled to over 13 per cent in the last year, due to growth in mainstream protection sales through its financial adviser channel.
Zurich said its strong performance was underpinned by strong relationships with distributors and market-leading propositions.
David White, head of retail at UK Life, said: “This is a very strong performance for Zurich, particularly against the backdrop of the protection market shrinking by over 20 per cent over the same period.
“Our market share has been growing over the past few years reflecting the ambition and expertise of our underwriting and claims teams. As a business we responded quickly to the needs of advisers in a post-EU Gender Directive and RDR environment.”
Mr White believes the reduction in the size of the protection market further demonstrates that many people are still not protecting themselves for the future and still believe the state will be there as a safety net when things go wrong.
He said: “We recognise there is an enormous responsibility on Zurich and the wider insurance industry to support advisers in helping them to educate their customers on the importance of protection; on the back of this we have recently launched a series of initiatives to support advisers, for example via training, literature and advertising.
“We are proud to provide protection cover to over 1 million customers in the UK and in the last year alone, we paid out over £170m in claims, making an enormous difference to people at incredibly difficult times.”
