Poll Results – Time Will Tell for Risk New Business Sales

Our latest poll results suggest most advisers hold a gloomy outlook when it comes to whether retail risk new business levels will rebound this year.

Despite our report last week that retail advised lump sum risk new business levels have been on the increase since the end of the March quarter last year, three advisers in four (76%) don’t think that overall trend will continue in 2021. Slightly less than one in five (18%) are more optimistic, while the rest are unsure.

The chart above demonstrates the recent bounce in lump sum retail new business, but this is balanced by the following chart, which informs a tapering of overall retail risk new business levels in recent years:

There also appears to exist a level of uncertainty within the sector as to how the 2021 roll-out of the new generation of individual income protection insurance products will be received by advisers and their clients, which means the level of new business sales for retail advised IP business is also a little uncertain at the moment.

This poll remains an exercise in crystal ball gazing, where only time will tell whether the the industry will witness a turnaround in the fortunes of overall risk new business levels in the retail advised sector.

As we stated last week (see: Risk New Business 2021), there are plenty of cause and effect factors impacting on the risk advice market at the moment, and our own crystal ball remains clouded as a result.

In the meantime, as we await the outcomes that the future will deliver, we welcome your own thoughts and your vote as our poll remains open for another week…