A year to be proud of

Great Britain saw its first Davies Cup win in 79 years, sealed by a glorious victory from Andy Murray, while Vitality Ambassador Jessica Ennis-Hill returned from having a baby to win gold at the Beijing World Athletics Championships.

Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One world title, Mo Farah added more gold medals to his collection and Chris Froome won his second Tour de France.

The list of nominees for the BBC gong is a roll call of great talent and,despite who wins, it shows how proud the UK should be of its position in the world of sport.

Even if we’re not all going to be the next world champion,we believe in the power of sport to help inspire people to live a healthy life.

At Vitality Life our mission is to engage people in the importance of health and wellbeing, to be a force for social good while ensuring people are financially protected.

Reflecting on 2015 in protection I think we can also be proud of an exciting year of achievements.

It has been a good year for raising protection’s profile.

We’ve seen the collaborative efforts of the Seven Families campaign, which has done a fantastic job of raising awareness of the impact of losing an income.

Our rebrand to Vitality late last year has been a success.

It has helped us further embed our insurance model and position us as a brand which is centered on promoting wellness, delivering life and health insurance policies that incentivise and reward members for being healthy.

We also embarked on a new consumer television advertising campaign, following the antics of Stanley the sausage dog alongside our Vitality ambassadors, Jonny Wilkinson and Jessica Ennis-Hill, to promote health and wellbeing while increasing awareness of the need for protection.

The adverts were seen across our screens all year, and will continue into 2016.

Our aim is to help change the conversations advisers have with clients, and to make it easier to talk about health and life insurance.

We’ve also seen new entrants into the protection market this year, which can only be positive.

We need competition and innovation to drive the market forward, and we expect to see more of this in the year ahead.

New and evolving technology has also played a big part in 2015, and developments through 2016 in areas such as wearable technology will help change the way consumers can interact with their health and insurance, which is a huge benefit to them and wider society.

Our vision for 2016 is to help create a healthier and better protected nation.

So just like the sporting stars reflecting on their performance in 2015, we should feel proud of what we have achieved but ensure our focus is on what the New Year can bring.

It will be exciting to see how the successes of 2015 changes our behaviour into 2016, and how the market responds to the developments just around the corner.

To see real growth in protection we need to reach more consumers, and that’s much more powerful when everyone in the industry plays their part. So, are you ready? On your marks, get set, go.

Justin Taurog is distribution and marketing director at Vitality Life