2026 Risk New Business? Poll

Our final poll for 2025 asks you to look ahead and tell us whether you agree that recent indicators of risk new business growth will continue.

These indicators have recently been highlighted by NMG’s Sam Tremethick at the 2025 Bombora Conference, during which he told the risk-focussed dealer group audience the industry is tracking towards its best new business year since 2019 (see: Risk Business Green Shoots…).

Tremethick said his confidence around the rate of growth, however, was tempered by his view that without regulatory change, more efficient advice pathways, or improved general-advice capability, annual growth will remain constrained in the coming years.

He clarified this constraint was not consumer demand but rather the capacity of the advice profession – its ability to deliver enough advisers to accommodate the life insurance advice demand.

…the ‘murky middle’ …appears to be the cohort which has the highest growth rate potential

2025 is a year which has seen little regulatory change required to be implemented (for a change!), perhaps allowing advice practices more time to focus on developing and growing their businesses. One outcome of this ability to focus more on business building has been risk new business growth, much of which, according to Tremethick, seems to have been concentrated among the larger risk writers and those on the periphery of risk advice, while the ‘murky middle’ (advisers ranked 101 – 1,000 in terms of risk new business volume) appears to be the cohort which has the highest growth rate potential.

Where does your own advice practice sit within this spectrum? Is yours a risk-focussed proposition? A generalist? Are you on the periphery of writing any life insurance business? Regardless of the nature of your advice proposition, what does 2026 look like for your practice on the risk new business front compared with this year?

Tell us what you think and we’ll report back next week…