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This provides you with a great opportunity to contact your clients, make them aware of the changes and promote the importance of income protection.

More than 3m people of working age are currently receiving benefits.

However the government's long-term plans for getting people back to work and away from a life on benefits include the aim of reducing the number of people on incapacity benefit by 1m.

The new welfare reform changes, being introduced on 27 October, will contribute to the achievement of this ultimate goal.

Under the new system, incapacity benefit claimants will undergo stricter medical tests to determine whether they are capable of doing any work-related activity, even if this is completely different from their previous job.

If they are found to be capable, they will be encouraged to perform this type of work and any refusal could affect their level of benefit.

It is estimated about half of new claimants will fail this new test, compared with 40 per cent on the current test.

With the current levels of state benefits often not enough to sustain a minimum standard of living, this clearly highlights the shortfalls your clients could face under the new system.

According to the latest research, a single person in Britain needs to earn at least £13,400 a year before tax to sustain a minimum standard of living . This is often more than the current amounts paid in state benefits.

With the new system only paying out a maximum of £102.10p a week to the severely disabled, income protection is now more important to your client than ever.

If your client is thinking of relying on state benefits, they could find their financial standard of living suffers and they could end up in a job completely different to the one they were in before their incapacity.

With many income protection policies offering an own occupation benefit, your clients would be wise to financially prepare and enjoy the peace of mind income protection could provide.

Mark Jones is head of protection for Friends Provident