"This year’s Income Protection Awareness Week is a useful reminder to consider the moments that matter; not only the major life events, but that unexpected illness or injury that can disrupt everyday finances."
- Jamie Page - The Exeter
The Income Protection Task Force (IPTF) has launched the sixth Income Protection Action Week (IPAW), with the first session, 'The Protection Gap We Don’t Talk About Enough: Young Clients and Income Risk', examining how to reach younger clients as they start out in their careers or as they look at renting or buying their first home.
There will be a session each day until Friday 25th September, focusing on different key life moments that could trigger a protection conversation. This includes when a person gains momentum in their career, when a person’s income starts supporting somebody else - such as a child - when illness or injury occurs to a person or their loved ones, and the role of income protection (IP) in future plans - especially in light of AI.
The sessions are hosted by the IPTF’s managing director Jo Miller and executive director Vicky Churcher.
In the first session, they cited Swiss Re’s Term and Health Watch 2026 report, which found that total new sales for IP were up 11.9% year-on-year in 2025, and Mintel’s Income Protection UK 2025 report, which revealed that 35% of people are considering taking out IP, to highlight the progress that has been made in this area.
However, they also cited the IPTF and Iress’ latest Profile of an Income Protection Customer report, which found that 76% of the UK population don’t have income protection, and a further 11% don’t even know if they have IP or not, and CIExpert’s Critical Thinking report, released in March 2026, which showed that 7 in 10 consumers have not heard anything about IP or critical illness in the last year.
"As a population, we are not as financially resilient as we could be, and not enough people who are eligible for income protection actually have it," Jo Miller said.
The session featured a discussion with Melissa Burrows of KDW Financial Planning and Kevin Mugisha of Vantage Wealth Management, which underlined the importance of people-led conversations when engaging with younger generations, as well as combatting the inaccuracies of AI and the optimism bias that often factors into younger people’s protection research.
This was followed by Lucy Brown of Reassured and Tara Cohen of The Mortgage Centre Direct, who discussed the importance of financial education in schools, with the final discussion featuring Mike Farrell of LV= and Marta Scott-Manuszewska of Five Star Mortgages, who looked at the messages around IP products and how to broaden the appeal to younger generations.
READ MORE: More than a third of first-time buyers don’t remember receiving protection advice
Commenting on Income Protection Action Week, Jamie Page, head of protection distribution at The Exeter, said: "This year’s Income Protection Awareness Week is a useful reminder to consider the moments that matter; not only the major life events, but that unexpected illness or injury that can disrupt everyday finances. Without savings to fall back on, even a relatively short period away from work can put households under real financial pressure.
"More people appear to be considering this risk; our Google trends analysis showed searches for income protection up 30% on the previous year. Yet our Consumer Health and Finance Tracker found that only 9% of UK adults hold a policy, so closing the gap between recognising the need for protection and putting it in place is where advisers can make a real difference.
"A good place to start is by putting some real numbers around a client’s situation. Consider the employer sick pay they would receive, what statutory sick pay would provide, and how long their savings would last once both end. It is a straightforward but valuable conversation to revisit regularly as circumstances change, particularly when a client moves jobs or becomes self-employed, when their existing protection may no longer be enough."
