"Customers are taking a more considered approach to spending, working with advisers to align protection with their needs and budgets."
- Jennifer Gilchrist - Swiss Re
The total number of new protection policies sold in the UK last year was approximately 2 million, a decline of around 1.7% compared to 2024, with income protection (IP) showing the most resilience in the market, according to Swiss Re’s Term & Health Watch 2026.
Although new sales for IP products reached 266,994 in 2025, a rise of 11.9%, growth slowed by 6.5 percentage points compared to the previous year, which saw an increase of 18.4% in new sales.
Nevertheless, Swiss Re claims that IP represents the "core" of a "stable" market that is adapting and rebalancing as customers’ priorities shift towards value and how protection is structured over time, causing demand to become more selective. According to Swiss Re, IP’s continued growth is at least in part due to the emergence of simpler and more flexible IP products, including limited payment term (LPT) policies.
Elsewhere in the market, new sales for standalone critical illness products rose to 137,263, up by 2.1% from 2024, while new underwritten whole of life sales increased by 0.7% to 26,768. On the other hand, new sales for underwritten whole of life critical illness dropped by 23.4% to 3,254, guaranteed acceptance whole of life fell by 12.5% to 192,051, and term with and without critical illness saw a 2.88% decrease to 1,381,577.
Swiss Re also found that joint life first death policies are in decline, with the number of new level term joint life policies dropping from 72,008 last year to 49,944 in 2025, a decrease of 30.6% year-on-year. This comes as industry campaigns continue to raise awareness of the option for single-life solutions over joint-life cover.
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"The market is not contracting, but rebalancing," Jennifer Gilchrist, senior industry affairs manager at Swiss Re, said. "Customers are taking a more considered approach to spending, working with advisers to align protection with their needs and budgets."
Charlie Dellar, principal analytics consultant at iPipeline, added: "Protection demand is evolving rather than retreating. 2025 saw continued growth in multi-benefit policies, with income protection an increasingly popular benefit.
"Whilst advisers are focused on increased efficiency, it may be that consumer sentiment has also driven this demand - a sense of financial vulnerability driven by cost of living and economic pressures."
