In the following article, Justin Harper, Chief Marketing Officer at LifeSearch, believes closing the protection gap starts long before advice begins. While the market serves those who already hold cover, many people never properly engage, often only considering life insurance after a trigger like a mortgage, a health scare, or a life change.
At LifeSearch, Justin sees how awareness, timing, and relevant prompts around everyday life moments can help people understand risk, explore options, and arrive at advisers better prepared and more confident.
The protection gap is often discussed as if it is a product problem. In reality, it is much more about timing, awareness and relevance. I was encouraged to read the FCA’s conclusion in its Market Study Interim Report that, generally, the market works well for people who already hold cover. Where it struggles is much earlier in the journey, with the many people who never properly engage at all.
From our day‑to‑day experience at LifeSearch, this plays out in a familiar way. Many people come to us after looking for life insurance on a price comparison site. May be after a prompt such as a mortgage, a health scare, or a change in circumstances. Few have really thought about what would happen if they couldn’t work. Others tell us they assumed cover would be unaffordable, unavailable, or simply ‘not for people like me’. By the time any advice enters the picture, we need to have covered a lot of ground.
A key insight from the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study, and the conversations that have followed, is that awareness needs to start earlier and happen around advisers, not sit entirely with them.
Moving beyond the mortgage moment
Historically, the mortgage has been the dominant trigger for protection conversations, accounting for some 80% of protection sales. That has worked well, but it is no longer sufficient on its own.
People are buying their first homes much later than previous generations, typically in their mid-thirties. At the same time, a significant and growing proportion of the population – c5million’ households are privately renting, sometimes temporarily and sometimes as a long‑term ‘choice’. Many of the people we speak to today are renting while building careers, moving across country, or juggling multiple income streams. They may not have a mortgage for years, if at all.
Overlay that with modern working lives. People are likely to have a dozen or more jobs over their lifetime, and increasingly multiple or parallel careers. Income is more volatile, employment is less linear, and the traditional triggers for financial resilience conversations are being delayed or missed altogether.
Life moments, not product labels
Another barrier is language. ‘Protection’ is familiar inside the industry, but for many people it means very little, or many different things at once. In conversations with customers, we rarely hear product names used. Instead, people talk about paying rent, covering bills, or what would happen if they couldn’t work for a few months.
This is where life‑moment prompts matter. Starting university, entering work, moving into rented accommodation, taking on debt or changing jobs are all moments where an income risk becomes real. They are natural opportunities to introduce the idea of financial resilience in plain, everyday terms, without forcing an immediate advice conversation.
Importantly, this is not about mass education campaigns or louder advertising. It is about timely, targeted prompts that help people recognise risk whiochis relevant to them and they understand what to do next.
More than one route to action
Advice remains vital, but it is not always the first step, or the only route, for everyone. In our experience, some people want to explore options themselves first, others prefer guided or assisted journeys and, increasingly, move between self‑serve and advice over time (or even within a purchase).
Designing products and propositions that people can understand and access on their own, supported by clear guidance and signposting, is part of closing the gap. Advice then becomes the place people go to personalise, sense‑check and act with confidence, rather than the point where awareness begins.
This approach doesn’t diminish the role of advisers. I believe it strengthens it.
The role of trusted touchpoints
One of the strongest themes from the FCA’s work is trust. Prompts land very differently depending on who delivers them. When messages come from trusted, everyday touchpoints – such as employers, government‑backed services, regulators, or increasingly the digital money apps many people already use to manage their finances – they feel supportive and normal and not a (real or perceived) sales ploy.
This is where the FCA has an important role to play as a convening force. Closing the protection gap cannot sit with advisers or insurers alone. Coordinated action across government departments, employers, housing, education and financial services can help embed practical life‑moment prompts consistently and at scale.
Making advisers’ lives easier
For advisers, the prize is significant. Better‑prepared people mean better conversations. Less time spent explaining basics. More time focused on individual circumstances, suitability and good outcomes.
Done well, this more coordinated approach ensures advisers are not carrying the full weight of education alone. It helps people engage earlier, choose the route that suits them best, and arrive ready to act when advice is appropriate.
Closing the protection gap is not about doing more at the point of advice. It is about making sure people reach that conversation better informed, more confident and better prepared – wherever they are in their working lives.
