Critical illness sales survive mortgage decline

The market analyst's new Guide to Critical Illness shows mortgage-related critical illness sales fell by 19.5% but total critical illness sales by only 4.7% last year. Although the two have historically been interlinked, the critical illness sector managed to insulate itself during a weak period for gross mortgage lending which fell from £362,632m in 2007 to £143,506m in 2009. Ben Heffer, Insight Analyst at Defaqto and author of the guide, says: "Protection policies are ‘sold' not ‘bought' and protection advisers have simply had to work harder for their sales. Advisers have had to inc...