Programme
COVER Magazine is delighted to welcome you back to the COVER Protection and Health Summit.
Arrive early and start the day right by enjoying our welcome breakfast!
We start off the day with a welcome from our editor, Cameron Roberts.
The theme for this year’s COVER Protection and Health Summit is “Turning Insight into Action”.
The protection industry is undergoing a period of significant change. With the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study bringing the protection gap into sharper focus, the sector faces both scrutiny and opportunity. At the same time, the Government’s growing emphasis on workplace health presents a unique opportunity for the industry to play a more central role in supporting economic participation, productivity and financial resilience.
Join Yvonne Braun OBE, Director of Policy, Long-Term Savings, Health & Protection at the ABI, for a strategic look at the future of protection. Drawing on developments over the past year, Yvonne will explore the forces reshaping the market, the implications of the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study, and the opportunities for the industry to demonstrate its value to consumers, employers and government alike.
This session will cover:
- The ABI’s perspective on the FCA’s Pure Protection Market Study
- Key trends in products, distribution and consumer demand
- The evolving role of advisers in closing the protection gap
- Opportunities for the industry to support workplace health and economic growth
The FCA's Pure Protection Market Study will shape the future direction of the protection market. Following publication of the final report in Q3, this opening keynote will examine the regulator's conclusions, feedback from industry stakeholders, and any new expectations for firms operating across the protection value chain.
The industry has spent years talking about the protection gap. But as our understanding has evolved, so too has the challenge. Helping clients recognise the need for protection is becoming just as important as identifying the risks they face.
Today we're not just facing a protection gap. We're seeing awareness, engagement and resilience gaps that leave millions of households financially exposed to life's unexpected shocks.
What do these gaps mean for the future of protection? Drawing on insights from Royal London’s Financial Resilience Report, this session explores the industry's response and the role advisers can play in helping more clients build financial resilience.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand the different gaps affecting protection today, including protection, awareness, engagement and resilience gaps.
- Recognise the challenges many households face in building and maintaining financial resilience.
- Describe how income protection and emerging industry innovations are helping more clients improve their financial resilience.
Time to grab a coffee and meet our exhibitors.
Misrepresentation remains one of the protection industry’s most complex challenges, affecting customers, advisers, insurers, reinsurers and claims outcomes. This interactive session will explore why disclosure issues persist, whether current processes support customers effectively, and how the industry can improve outcomes without adding unnecessary friction. Bringing together perspectives from across the protection value chain, the discussion will consider the role of behavioural science, technology, adviser engagement and industry collaboration. Attendees will leave with practical insights, fresh thinking and clear opportunities for action to help improve disclosure, strengthen trust and support better customer outcomes.
Many UK consumers remain under protected, not simply because of affordability or access barriers, but because they lack a clear understanding of the risks they face and the role protection can play in supporting financial resilience. As the industry seeks to address the protection gap, improving consumer awareness and engagement has become a critical priority.
This session will examine:
- Why protection continues to be overlooked.
- How advisers can have more meaningful conversations about risk.
- What insurers, distributors and policymakers can do to improve understanding, build trust and encourage action.
This panel discussion brings together industry experts to examine how income protection, early intervention and vocational rehabilitation can work together to support a healthier, more resilient UK workforce, framed by the Keep Britain Working agenda and the Sir Charlie Mayfield review, and aligned with national priorities around prevention, staying in work and supporting people to age healthily in employment.
Time for lunch - grab a bite to eat in the exhibition hall and grow your network!
Product Updates
This session examines how advisers, brokers, insurers, and reinsurers around the world are using AI across the protection customer journey; from the first prompt a consumer types to the new data now reaching reinsurance pricing. Alain Desmier (Subcontext) and Joschem Padayachee (Hannover Re) bring the two ends of that journey together to look at what is already live, what the evidence shows about conversion and disclosure quality, which parts of the journey are being redesigned rather than automated, and where human judgement sits when the handoffs between distribution, underwriting and reinsurance start to disappear.
Critical Illness Cover (CIC) and Income Protection (IP) uptake among renters remains low, despite many facing the same financial risks as homeowners if illness or injury affects their ability to work and meet ongoing living costs.
This session will:
- Explore why renters are less engaged with protection.
- Examine how mortgage-led messaging and "later life" thinking suppress consideration of CIC and IP.
- Discuss how protection can be reframed around income security, recovery, and the ability to meet rental and everyday living costs.
With inheritance tax becoming a growing concern for more clients, advisers are increasingly being asked how families can meet future IHT liabilities without prematurely surrendering control of their assets. This session explores where protection fits within modern estate planning, contrasting lifetime gifting with liquidity strategies, while expanding into the vital role of corporate and group protection. Our panel will examine how personal wealth managers and employee benefit advisers can bridge the gap to protect family wealth.
COVER Classroom
What if we’ve been defining the protection gap too narrowly? Traditionally, it’s been seen as the difference between the cover people and businesses have and what they need. But changing consumer needs and behaviours demand a broader conversation. Protection needs vary significantly, and traditional life-event triggers simply don’t reach everyone. Closing today’s protection gap means challenging how we build awareness, relevance and engagement with a wider range of clients.
By the end of this session, you’ll have a better understanding of:
- Who is still being underserved, and why.
- The needs of clients outside the traditional advice cycle.
- How we make protection advice more relevant and engaging to them.
How would you advise this client? In this interactive session, advisers will work through realistic client situations, voting on the best course of action before hearing how industry experts would approach the challenge.
For many firms, vulnerability data remains one of the most difficult areas of Consumer Duty implementation. Concerns around GDPR and data protection can create uncertainty about what information can be collected, recorded and shared across the distribution chain.
Drawing on recent industry guidance, the discussion will examine:
- Where firms are getting it wrong.
- Why GDPR should be viewed as an enabler rather than a barrier.
- How better use of vulnerability data can improve customer support, product design and consumer outcomes.
Time to grab a refreshment and chat to our exhibitors.
The FCA Pure Protection Market Study makes it clear that protection must grow in order to create good customer outcomes for more customers. But what does that next step look like?
Our experts will discuss growth opportunities in the market, how to get more people protected, and will debate the merits and pitfalls of two key approaches in the future of protection and health.
This session will discuss:
- The role of price comparison sites in growing the market
- If AI in broking is an opportunity or a threat
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What protection and health needs to do to prepare for the next era of advice
Thank you for joining COVER Protection and Health Summit.
Please note that this programme is subject to change