Advertorial
This survey is conducted annually and provides both market and competitor information (only available to survey subscribers).
With this news, Tim Stoves, interim managing director for Canada Life Group Insurance, says: “Canada Life became the number one group risk provider in 2013.
“We are delighted to have retained this position for the third year in a row, with more employers and employees covered, and consequently the largest market share by premiums, than any other insurer. We continue to strive to be easy to do business with and provide a market-leading service with CLASS continuing to be the flagship of SME group risk.
The industry should align to ensure these increasingly important benefits take front and centre of the health and wellbeing focus of many organisations Tim Stoves“The report shows that our marketplace has had some great success with another increase in employee numbers showing genuine employer need for group risk benefits. There are some clear challenges, specifically in attracting new employers to our marketplace.
“There are 1.8m employers going through Automatic Enrolment. The good news is that there are an additional 1,525 new Registered Group Life schemes but with only 42,848 schemes this evidences what a significant market growth opportunity there is.
“A feature of the death benefit market is the additional 1,236 policies and 99,473 new employees that are covered under Excepted Group Life policies. The reduction in the Lifetime Allowance to £1m may drive the popularity of this type of scheme.
“Looking at the Group Income Protection market we note that, despite an additional 27,644 employees being covered, 8 fewer employers are now in the market. In effect we are stuck at around 17,100 employers. It seems the messages about the great services being offered by insurers, including day-one absence referrals, second medical opinion, employee assistance programmes etc., are not getting across.
“The industry should align to ensure these increasingly important benefits take front and centre of the health and wellbeing focus of many organisations. As State Disability Benefits get smaller and increasingly hard to obtain this is an issue on which we should all be capitalising.
“Conversely there has been significant growth in the group critical illness market with a further 71,426 employees covered, mostly within flexible benefit schemes. Growth of 7.8 per cent by scheme numbers is excellent but with only 3,062 schemes in place, as with Group Life, there is plenty of room for new schemes to be quoted and we are here and ready to support that.
“In summary while we are delighted with our business performance and appreciate the support shown by our loyal customers and advisers, we are under no illusion there are still many opportunities to expand the group risk market.
“You can expect Canada Life to lead in all of these product areas and to address the challenges by continuing to invest in technology, service and product development.”