Income Protection Action Week: shining a light on a lifeline too often overlooked

While insurance products like life cover and critical illness often take centre stage, income protection remains less widely understood, despite the profound and lasting difference it makes to people’s lives. For many, it is the safety net that ensures financial stability in the face of illness or injury, offering not just short-term relief but long-term support that can span years, even decades.

As Income Protection Action Week, led by the Income Protection Task Force (IPTF), reaches its fourth day, Daren Boys, Protection Portfolio Distribution Director at Aviva, shares why the week is such a vital opportunity to highlight the life-changing value of income protection.

“As proud supporters of the Income Protection Task Force (IPTF), we’re pleased to contribute to the conversation during Income Protection Action Week—a timely and essential initiative to raise awareness of a product that too often flies under the radar, despite its life-changing impact.

Income protection is not just a policy; it’s a lifeline. It’s about ensuring people can maintain their financial stability when illness or injury prevents them from working. The reality is stark: Statutory Sick Pay lasts just 81 working days, and for many, that’s nowhere near enough. That’s why we believe this week is so important, not just to promote income protection, but to grow overall market understanding and engagement. 

It is a vital conversation that advisers can have with customers for financial resilience, using claims statistics and case studies to bring this to life. Our own claims data tells a powerful story – our longest ongoing claim has lasted over 39 years, and the average claim duration is 6 years and 9 months.

These figures speak volumes about the long-term value income protection provides. It’s not just about short-term recovery—it’s about sustained support through life’s most challenging periods.

We’re actively supporting IPTF’s efforts this week through communications with advisers such as: 

• Sharing the reasons for claim and highlighting our longest claim to show the breadth and depth of support income protection can offer.
• Sharing powerful case studies whose experiences show how vital it is to have the right cover in place.
• Hosting a webinar on Monday 29th at 10am, where we’ll interview the adviser who reviewed a customer’s cover. The customer had Income Protection and Critical Illness cover in place prior to her diagnosis of breast cancer—an example of how good advice and timely protection can make all the difference.
• Raising awareness of limited payment term Income Protection as a budget-friendly way to strengthen financial resilience for clients—an important consideration in today’s economic climate.

Ultimately, our goal is to help grow the market to support as many customers as possible, and reach more individuals who deserve financial security when they need it most.”