"Ultimately, the latest data points to a market that is becoming more mature, more efficient and increasingly focused on delivering value over volume."
- Jacqueline Durbin - Iress
For years, the protection market, ourselves included, has measured momentum through volume: how many quotes were run, how many comparisons were generated, how much activity flowed through sourcing systems each quarter.
Last year alone, 10.5 million protection comparison requests on The Exchange generated 117 million quote responses.
But our latest data suggests the industry is entering a more mature and encouraging phase - one defined less by activity for activity’s sake, and more by precision, intent and meaningful client engagement.
A shift from comparison to conversion
Our data shows a clear move away from high-volume comparison behaviour towards conversion-led activity. While total comparison volumes have moderated from the exceptional highs seen in the post-pandemic years, application requests increased by 10.5% quarter-on-quarter, with quote-to-application conversion rates reaching 6.74% - the strongest Q1 conversion performance we’ve seen in five years.
Rather than signalling market slowdown, this points to something more significant: advisers are becoming more targeted, more deliberate and ultimately more effective in how they engage clients. Fewer speculative quotes are being run because adviser-client conversations are beginning with greater clarity, better qualification and stronger intent from the outset.
That matters because efficiency in protection advice is not simply about speed. It is about creating more space for meaningful conversations. When advisers spend less time navigating administrative friction, duplicate data entry or uncertainty around final premiums, they can focus more energy on helping clients understand risk, resilience and long-term financial security.
Holistic protection is becoming the norm
This evolution is changing the nature of advice itself. The protection conversation is becoming increasingly holistic, with advisers moving beyond single-policy discussions towards broader, multi-benefit planning.
The data shows multi-benefit solutions now account for more than 20% of all applications via The Exchange, following a 13.7% year-on-year increase. What was once considered a specialist approach is rapidly becoming mainstream advice practice.
The trend is clearly seen in the IFA market, where almost half of all income protection policies are now written as part of a menu plan, while around two-thirds of term assurance business is sold within multi-benefit arrangements. Advisers are increasingly structuring protection around overall household resilience rather than isolated product sales.
This also reflects changing client expectations. Consumers increasingly want joined-up financial guidance that considers income, debt, family protection and lifestyle risks together - not fragmented conversations spread across multiple stages of advice.
Technology continues to play an important role in enabling that shift.
Reducing friction at the point of advice
The most meaningful innovation in protection sourcing today is not the addition of more features, but the removal of uncertainty at the point decisions are made. Historically, one of the biggest causes of stalled or abandoned applications has been a lack of clarity around underwriting outcomes and pricing changes later in the process.
By bringing more detailed lifestyle and underwriting factors into the initial quote journey, including enhanced BMI data and ex-smoker status, advisers can have more accurate conversations much earlier. These are two of the most influential factors affecting final premium outcomes, and surfacing them earlier reduces the uncertainty that can otherwise erode client confidence later in the process.
The impact is tangible. Following the introduction of more precise ex-smoker pricing fields across our Protection comparison services, average quote-to-application lead times reduced from 25 minutes to 20 minutes. While incremental on the surface, improvements like this can deliver significant cumulative gains when scaled across thousands of adviser-client interactions.
Making protection part of the mortgage conversation
The growing integration of protection into mortgage workflows is also driving stronger engagement and conversion outcomes. Today, 46% of firms using Xplan Mortgage sell protection alongside a mortgage application, up from 39% three years ago. We have also seen a 4.7% increase in protection policies sold where protection is embedded directly into the mortgage journey.
When protection is introduced naturally within a broader financial discussion, advisers are less likely to encounter the disconnect that often arises when conversations are revisited later or managed across multiple systems. Instead, protection becomes a more timely and relevant part of the customer journey, helping advisers address financial resilience at the very moment clients are making major financial decisions.
Quality is now the stronger signal
Ultimately, the latest data points to a market that is becoming more mature, more efficient and increasingly focused on delivering value over volume.
Protection has historically been assessed through scale - how much activity is flowing through the system. But the more meaningful signal today is quality: higher-intent conversations, better informed recommendations, faster journeys from quote to application, and more comprehensive protection planning.
For advisers, this represents a clear opportunity. As technology continues to remove administrative barriers, the value of advice increasingly lies in interpretation, reassurance and the ability to guide clients through complex financial decisions with clarity and confidence.
For sourcing technology partners like us, the next stage of innovation in protection will not be about accelerating transactions, but enabling richer, more meaningful conversations that help clients better understand the role protection plays in safeguarding their financial future.
In that sense, the shift from quantity to quality is not a reduction in activity. It is a sign of progress - towards more intentional advice, deeper integration and ultimately better outcomes for clients. There is still important work ahead to ensure this progress translates into broader protection coverage for more people, but the direction of travel is encouraging, and we look forward to seeing what the next wave of data reveals.
Further insight into the evolving income protection market will be published in Iress’ forthcoming Profile of an IP Customer report, produced in collaboration with the IPTF and released on 16 June.
