"Educating advisers, paraplanners, and administrators on how to put together the best IP plan is crucial."
- Alan Waddington, Distribution Director at Cirencester Friendly
Last month, teams of six from across the industry gathered to compete at Inside Track - the ultimate team-based gameshow experience designed to pit the very best in protection against one another; who doesn’t enjoy some friendly rivalry?!
For 2025, Inside Track was supported by Cirencester Friendly as Sponsor of its ‘Insurance History’ round. I spoke with Alan Waddington, Distribution Director at Cirencester Friendly, about why he’s supporting this initiative.
"We’re always up for getting involved in anything that’s a bit different, and we’re keen to support anything Protection Reporter is doing to raise the profile of Financial Services - especially protection," he said.
"It’s an opportunity to compete against some of our friendly rivals in the industry."
The Insurance History round featured questions written by Katharine Moxham (GRiD), Paul Roberts (CIExpert), Nick Telfer (Vitality), Emma Thomson (Women in Protection Network), and Neil McCarthy (PDG).
Alan highlighted that Cirencester has been around since 1890: "We’re one of the oldest friendly societies in the Income Protection (IP) market, so it felt natural to sponsor this round."
He said: "The friendly societies have been around for a long time, but there’s no better time to be promoting them. It’s good to reflect on the industry’s history, how we’ve arrived at where we are, and how many people we’ve helped over the years."
"We think our legacy and heritage is important."
Championing education, Inside Track 2025 supported the ongoing work of the charity-led campaign 7Families, fundraising £10,000 for upcoming awareness initiatives. 7Families ran between 2014-16 and followed the lives of seven families who’d suffered an income shock but didn’t have IP.
Equally funded by insurers across the industry, 7Families provided payments to these families – replicating what they would have received if they had IP in place. Throughout this campaign, the families were filmed regularly to document the impact of the payments & added-value services provided – 7Families celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024.
Cirencester’s donation to 7Families came from its 125 Foundation, which was established in 2015 to celebrate its 125th anniversary. In 2024, there were 83 applications and over £51k paid out in financial awards to members, local causes, and charities.
Looking back to 2014, Alan had been working at British Friendly which sponsored 7Families at its inception. "I followed it with interest as IP was still lagging behind other products in the market at the time. I’m confident that 7Families has inspired more people to think about IP and reflect on the impact of not having IP (or not having protection at all) should the worst happen," he said.
"It’s marvellous that we’re continuing to highlight 7Families, and we’re delighted to support Protection Reporter and the Income Protection Task Force (IPTF) in promoting this initiative."
“Everyone knows about Life Insurance, and Critical Illness Cover (CIC) has been in the spotlight for decades now. IP is on something of a resurgence, but we shouldn’t assume that consumers suddenly understand what they’re buying,” Alan stressed.
