Report Summary
Cost of living crisis has led to a reduction in new sales, with affordability concerns remaining
The rising cost of living has made it difficult for providers to gain new sales at a time when more people are cautious about entering into long-term financial commitments. With a large number ruling out cover for affordability reasons, this does raise the need for more policy options at a lower cost that offer at least a basic level of cover.
A new marketing push is needed to display relevance to consumers
Over a quarter of consumers think CI is not a product that is relevant to them, possibly reflecting a misunderstanding of the product or overconfidence in financial resilience. The potentially high financial costs associated with suffering and recovering from a severe illness need to be highlighted by brands and the use of real-life examples and case studies could help them achieve this.
Promotion of health and wellbeing product add-ons will attract target market
With younger consumers most likely to consider owning critical illness cover in the future, as well as using cover to help pay for medical/treatment bills, providers have an opportunity to engage about how protection insurance can help them at a time when the NHS is under severe pressure. Social media advertising and influencer marketing could be used to promote CI to this target group.
Key Issues Covered in this Report:
- The size of the critical illness cover market and a five-year forecast for new business
- Key drivers for the critical illness cover market
- Ownership and consideration of critical illness cover among UK adults
- Barriers to critical illness cover ownership
- Benefits of having critical illness cover
- Critical illness cover information sources
- Consumer knowledge of critical illness cover
- The influence of product add-ons on provider choice
Meet The Expert
This report is written by Lewis Cone, Associate Director – Financial Services at Mintel. Lewis joined Mintel in May 2013 having graduated from the University of Southampton with a 2.1 BSc (Hons) degree in Economics and writes a range of industrial reports, from occupational health to the house building market.
The number of new policies has stalled, but sales could be boosted by highlighting the value of product add-ons to the large number considering taking out cover.
Lewis Cone
Associate Director – Financial Services
Table of Contents
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Executive Summary
- Key issues covered in this Report
- Opportunities for the critical illness cover market
- Market dynamics and outlook
- Graph 1: new critical illness cover contracts, by market segment, 2019-23
- Graph 2: channels to market, by market segmentation, 2023
- Graph 3: market shares of the top five providers of new individual critical illness cover, 2022
- What consumers want and why
- Graph 4: protection insurance product ownership, 2024
- Graph 5: barriers to taking out a critical illness cover policy, 2024
- Graph 6: perceived main benefits of having a critical illness cover policy, 2024
- Graph 7: critical illness cover information sources, 2024
- Graph 8: consumer knowledge of critical illness cover, 2024
- Graph 9: product add-ons that would influence choice of critical illness cover provider, 2024
- Innovation and marketing
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Market Dynamics
- Market size
- Graph 10: market size for critical illness cover sector – value of new premiums, 2019-23
- Graph 11: number of new contracts for critical illness cover, 2019-23
- Market segmentation
- Graph 12: new critical illness cover contracts, by market segment, 2019-23
- Market forecast
- Channels to market
- Graph 13: total new protection contracts with critical illness cover, by advice channel, 2023
- Graph 14: channels to market, by market segmentation, 2023
- Claims experience
- Graph 15: number of claims paid, by reason for claim, 2022
- Market share
- Macro-economic factors
- Graph 16: GDP, 2021-23
- Graph 17: CPI inflation, 2020-24
- Graph 18: Bank of England Base Rate changes, 2017-23
- Graph 19: household financial wellbeing index, 2019-24
- Graph 20: “Have you been affected by any of these issues over the last two months? Please select all that apply.”, 2024
- Social and regulatory factors
- Graph 21: total number of people waiting for NHS services in England, 2020-24
- Graph 22: residential property transactions over £40,000, seasonally-adjusted, 2019-23
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What Consumers Want and Why
- Protection product ownership
- Graph 23: protection insurance product ownership, 2024
- Graph 24: critical illness cover ownership, by housing tenure, 2024
- Consideration of critical illness cover
- Graph 25: likelihood of consumers to consider critical illness cover in the future, 2019-24
- Graph 26: likelihood of consumers to consider critical illness cover in the future, by protection product ownership, 2024
- Graph 27: likelihood of consumers to consider critical illness cover, by housing tenure, 2024
- Barriers to critical illness cover ownership
- Graph 28: barriers to taking out a critical illness cover policy, 2024
- Graph 29: barriers to taking out a critical illness cover policy, by financial situation, 2024
- Key benefits of having critical illness cover
- Graph 30: perceived main benefits of having a critical illness cover policy, 2024
- Critical illness cover information providers
- Graph 31: critical illness cover information sources, 2024
- Consumer knowledge of critical illness cover
- Graph 32: consumer knowledge of critical illness cover, 2024
- Product add-ons and choosing a provider
- Graph 33: product add-ons that would influence choice of critical illness cover provider, 2024
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Innovation And Marketing Trends
- Competitive strategies
- Launch activity and innovation
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Appendix
- Report scope and definitions
- Methodology
- Market forecast data and methodology
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