The protection and health insurance industries in the UK are unnecessarily disjointed, according to an expert.
Deepak Jobanputra, actuarial and product director for PruProtect, suggests that with the industry being so fragmented, intermediaries could add extra value by combining advice on personal protection and health insurance .
Mr Jobanputra believes customers would prefer to see protection and private medical insurance (PMI) combined. He said: "For some reason, the UK protection and health insurance industries are fragmented. Private medical insurance products are short term while protection covers are typically long term. Intermediaries specialising in protection tend not to write a great deal of PMI business, if any and even providers tend to be split as two separate entities within a group, so that we have a protection side and a health side.
He added that PruProtect was looking to move away from these pre-conceived ideas by combining health and protection covers, such as PMI and serious illness cover, in one product, with one price, one application form and one direct debit. This would make it easier for advisers to discuss more appropriate, comprehensive and mutually rewarding covers.




