Death statistics

1 in 10 parents review their life insurance after the birth of a child

Source: Scottish Widows survey of 2,037 adults, 08/2005

35% of parents have no life insurance at all

Source: Scottish Widows survey of 2,037 adults, 08/2005

1 in 4 men now aged 20 will not live to 65
Source: Swiss Re 2001

Over 1,650 people die in Britain every day
Source: National Statistics Online, 11/2003

The state bereavement payment is only £2,000
Source: Redmayne Consulting, 04/2003

A leading protection distributor recommends a minimum of £150,000 of life cover for each new born child
Source: LifeSearch

The life assurance gap is £2 trillion sum assured
Source: Swiss Re, Term and Health Watch 2003

Every week 6,200 people are killed or injured in road traffic accidents
Source: Office for National Statistics

The IHT market is £2.3 billion.

Source: Scottish Equitable

Critical illness statistics

Over 270,000 people in Britain suffers a heart attack each year – that’s one heart attack every two minutes
Source: British Heart Foundation, 11/2003

Around 100,000 people each year in England and Wales suffer their first stroke – that’s one stroke every five minutes
Source: The Stroke Association, 11/2003

More than 1 in 3 people in Britain will develop cancer at some time in their lives
Source: Cancer Research UK, 11/2003

Over 110,000 million critical illness policies were sold in 2002
Source: Swiss Re, Term and Health Watch 2003

A man has a one in four chance of suffering a critical illness before retirement age. For a woman it is one in five.
Source: ERC Frankona Re

Over 55% of all CI claims are for cancer
Source: GE Frankona Re

7 times as many CI policies were sold in 2002 compared with 1992
Source: GE Frankona Re

1 in 10 people in the UK describe their health as “not good”
Source: Office for National Statistics

Scottish Provident have paid out over £2m in children's critical illness claims since the benefit was introduced in 2001

Source: Scottish Provident

Income Protection statistics

Nearly 2,000,000 people of working age will be off work for at least six months at any time through sickness and disability
Source: National Statistics Online, 11/2003

People are 19 times more likely to be off work for more than six months due to illness or injury than they are to die before the age of 65
Source: Department for Work and Pensions

Around 25% of people who retired before State pension age, did so because of their own ill health or, less often, because of someone else's ill health.
Source: OPCS 1992

The State will not pay your mortgage in any case if you have over £8,000 in savings, and the mortgage was taken out after 1 October 1995
Source: Redmayne Consulting, 04/2003

The maximum State Disability Living Allowance is only £97.15 per week
Source: Redmayne Consulting, 04/2003

In 2002 the proportion of income protection plans linked to mortgage or other expenditure passed 50%
Source: Swiss Re, Term and Health Watch 2003

The income protection gap is £130bn annual benefits
Source: Swiss Re, Term and Health Watch 2003

Four million people in the UK are currently claiming income support
Source: Office of National Statistics

Nearly 50% of people said they had no insurance against long term ill health and the inability to work
Source: LifeSearch

Stress leads to a million claims for disability

Source: Financial Times, 01/03/2004

Unemployment statistics

1 in 20 of all those who are able to work in the Britain are unemployed
Source: National Statistics Online, 11/2003

The weekly jobseeker’s Allowance for a couple is only £85.75 per week
Source: Redmayne Consulting, 04/2003

Over 1 in 3 mortgage advances have mortgage payment protection insurance attached

Source: Council of Mortgage Lender, H1 2003

The average length of an unemployment claim has risen to 175 days in 2003 from 141 days five years earlier

Source: Council of Mortgage Lender, H1 2003

Over 1 in 4 mortgages are covered by mortgage payment protection insurance

Source: Council of Mortgage Lender, H1 2004

The Housing Market

Breaking news: Halifax says 29% of detached property owners will pay IHT.  Halifax research has shown that nearly one third of detached property owners in the UK could be liable to pay Inheritance Tax.

Source: http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/item/138580

One in 5 adults have a mortgage with no associated life cover (2.2 million nationally)

Source: Scottish Widows survey of 2,037 adults, 08/2005

Owner occupation is just under 70% in the UK and just under 80% in Ireland
Source: European Mortgage Federation, European Commission, 2000

Mortgage debt is over 60% of GDP in the UK
Source: European Mortgage Federation, 2001

Over 40% borrow more than 3 times their income
Source: Council for Mortgage Lenders, 2003, Q3

The average price of a UK house is £134,100
Source: Halifax, 2004, Q1

UK homeowners are paying £2.06bn a year too much for their home insurance
Source: Consumer Intelligence

UK home insurance made nearly £800m profits in 2003, compared to a £174m loss in 2002.

Source: Datamonitor

UK home insurance premiums are set to rise 7% in 2004

Source: Datamonitor

In England and Wales people spend £449m every day on new homes

Source: Clear Cut Mortgages

Low-earners are having to borrow nearly 7 times income to buy a house

Source: assertahome.com

Only 14% of home moves are caused by employment relocation

Source: Bradford and Bingley Estate Agents

They said it

"Execution-only poses protection perils"
Tom Baigrie, MD LifeSearch, Feb 2004

"40% of protection application forms arrive at insurers with information missing"
Roger Edwards, Bright Grey, 26/02/04

"One third of applicants have no idea of the cost of life cover"
Source: Sainsbury's Bank, 01/04/04

"When insurers get the volume of business they plan for their service is good, when they get less it's great and when they get more it's bad"
Richard Verdin, Direct Life and Pensions, 01/04/04

"Battery hens are being banned, so should battery underwriters doing sixty plus cases a day"
Nigel Bradshaw, MD, Redmayne Consulting, April 2004

"British households and businesses now owe banks and othr creditors as much as the total external debt of Africa, Asia and Latin America put together"

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor

"Volume is vanity, profit is sanity"

Wilhelm Zeller, CEO Hannover Re