Friends Life has made two senior protection appointments including poaching Ageas' head of sales.

Lifesearch has bucked the trend of declining protection sales with a significant growth in business last year.

Critical illness (CI) and mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) are among the most complicated financial products for consumers to understand, the ABI has found.

Bright Grey paid out 91% of critical illness (CI) claims in the last six months of 2011.

Mental health claims are growing and now make up a third of all those received on group income protection (GIP) policies, according to Legal & General.

Workplace stress has reached a four-year high with British workers being the most stressed compared to colleagues in some of the world's biggest economies, a new report has found.

The coming year promises to be a tough one for the private healthcare sector, according to a new report from analyst Laing and Buisson.

Healix has voiced support for the use of open referrals within the private medical insurance (PMI) market but warned that insurers need to be more transparent about the process.

Advisers have given the Treasury's simple products initiative a tentative thumbs up while recognising that the financial services industry is overly complicated.

Universal Provident has launched a new combined protection and health insurance product aimed at customers forced to reduce their cover limits.