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It was back in 1995, when the housing market was last coming out of a period of increased repossessions, that the government issued a call to arms to the industry to push protection. John Major's government made it clear to the nation that it expected mortgage holders to protect themselves against "the big three" of accident, unemployment and sickness rather than simply rely on the state's welfare system.

It even set an unofficial target of 50 per cent of borrowers having insurance to protect against these scenarios impacting on their ability to meet their mortgage repayments.

However as lenders like Bradford & Bingley announced arrears were on the rise and following the flooding of a great swathe of properties across the country last summer, the need for greater numbers of homeowners to take out some form of insurance is again being highlighted and tapped into by politicians.

While the industry is united that there is a protection gap and as Swiss Re continues to point out the UK protection gap remains at more than £2 trillion, some now question whether Mr Major's government was right to set a target at all.

Should the nation's leaders have instead focused on making sure people had insurance that would meet their individual needs?

Richard Fox, chief executive of the Society of Mortgage Professionals, part of the Chartered Insurance Institute, said intermediaries still tended to sell the mortgage primarily and think of mortgage payment protection as a slightly different issue.

He said since the call for increased uptake of insurance, bancassurers had been the strongest distribution channel when it came to pushing MPPI.

But sadly many of these organisations had been selling the product with the aim of meeting their own sales targets. As a result this sort of cover had sometimes been pushed to the wrong people, which had a negative impact on the chances of MPPI becoming more popular.

Mr Fox said: "The product does overlap to a certain extent with social security benefits so people question why should they take it out when the benefits they would receive from it compared with what they would get from the state is not that big?

"The people who really need to take out this cover are those who are taking out a large mortgage and who are exposing their income to the maximum. If you are taking out a first-time mortgage and borrowing at four-times your salary the last thing you want to do is take out income protection as what you have left you want to use to feed yourself. It is an expensive product on top of everything else.

"Some have been sold where the person was not an ideal candidate and some have been sold as a lump sum premium on top of the home loan and that invariably has been bad advice. This product is good for some of the people some of the time but for some people it is not appropriate and not really necessary."

Mark Jones, head of protection marketing for Friends Provident, said the government targets showed unless you were very clear and careful with what was being aimed for there could be unexpected consequences.

The government's target led to a great deal of mortgage payment protection insurance being sold and Mr Jones said question marks remained over whether it was suitable for a lot of the people buying it.

He said: "There is a greater understanding of the requirement of protection for individuals however this understanding remains low compared with the actual needs of the industry. There is talk of a £2.3 trillion protection gap but that is so big a number that people cannot imagine it."

So 13 years on since the government called on a greater proportion of borrowers to take out insurance, are borrowers better off?

The Society of Mortgage Professional's Mr Fox said he felt the majority of consumers were not better off as a result of the government's push to increase uptake of protection.

He said there needed to be a greater push to make sure more people had the right sort of cover for their needs.

Mr Fox said: "It is about educating people. We go around our members encouraging them to focus on the affordability of the mortgage and the totality of the advice given around it.

"The adviser needs to look at each individual case and look at whether something needs to be done in case something happens to their income. You then take a position on whether something should be done or not. As a minimum it should be pointed out to people that these products are available."

Given the current economic climate, Friends Provident's Mr Jones said the industry had to make sure the current government did not repeat the mistakes of the past.

He said: "There is slowly becoming a better understanding of the need for protection and there are more stories in the general media now. In the last 10 years affordability of general insurance has really come down to within the reach of most of the population.

"As an industry we should take every opportunity to engage with the government before they go out with any of these sorts of targets again. The messages have got to be simple and engaging for the population. The government should not try to keep frightening people with the huge numbers that are often bandied about.

"Bringing it down to an individual level and making it meaningful to an individual is vital. It needs to be taken away from just leaping into debt. There are other forms of protection that are suitable for people just to maintain lifestyle. There are other messages about protection that should be put out there."