It is anticipated that the seminars will seek to educate advisers on ways to raise revenue through the sale of decreasing term life insurance policies, as well as to provide information on the impact of developments in regulation of the life insurance market.

Sesame’s Learning Manager, Graham Allison, commented, “Sesame is seeking to help advisers increase their focus on both individual and business protection, which is particularly timely as many advisers look to enhance their service and revenue, in light of the current tough conditions in the mortgage market.

“The advice profession is ideally placed to help clients ensure that they have the right level of cover, at an affordable price, with policies that will pay out in the event of a claim.”

He added that many advisers are failing to realize the need many consumers have for decreasing term life insurance protection, saying, “It is a real anomaly that at a time when the cost of protection cover has generally fallen, so has the amount of business being written. Yet statistics demonstrate that many UK households still do not have sufficient life cover for their mortgage, and have no idea of the financial hardship posed by a serious illness or long-term disability."

Sesame's website provides a variety of financial information and advice for both business and individual consumers.

Younger armed forces members have received particular encouragement, being reminded that policies are cheaper when a person is young.

William McCartney from Apple Insurance Brokers comments, “When you’re 18 years old you’re very, very cheap to insure so for anybody considering joining the army I would advise taking out a nice life insurance policy there and then.”

“My advice to any soldier would be to get your life insurance cover sorted, and the sooner they do the better.”

The need for life protection among members of the armed forces is increasingly reflected in the UK insurance market, with many insurers now offering policies specifically tailored for soldiers, whether they are seeking decreasing term policies, level term life insurance policies or critical illness cover.

Implementation of the EU Gender Directive into UK law means that insurers can now only use gender as a discriminatory factor for the pricing of policies if they can publish supporting data.

So that is exactly what the ABI has done, publishing data that shows significant differences between the claiming patterns of men and women for all kinds of life insurance policies, including critical illness cover. They also published data detailing gender differences in claiming patterns on other kinds of policy, such as for car insurance and medical insurance.

A spokesperson for the ABI commented, “The insurance industry is against unfair discrimination of any kind and does not practice it. But it is legitimate for companies to set prices, levels of cover and benefits according to a number of factors which together determine the relative risk that any given customer poses.

“The gender directive and the UK’s transposition of it recognised this and charged the insurance industry with compiling and publishing data to show the relevance of gender in making underwriting decisions. This has now been done. As a result, customers will continue to be able to benefit from fair pricing and a range of products which suit their needs at affordable prices.”

Generally speaking, in the UK at the moment, women will pay less for life insurance than men. With critical illness cover, however, the gender gap is less clear-cut, as a woman is only likely to pay significantly less than a man if she excludes breast cancer cover from her policy.

According to the study, customers are more willing to disclose difficult personal details when speaking with an advisor over the telephone. Surprisingly, at 1.23%, the rate for non-disclosure was even lower than it was for both paper and electronic applications, at 5.78% and 3.48% respectively.

The study is thought to be particularly relevant to the life insurance side of protection, with prospective policyholders obliged to disclose important details about their health and lifestyles.

Mike Taylor, AXA’s chief underwriter for protection, commented that speaking over the telephone was “far less intrusive than being asked sensitive health and lifestyle information face-to-face.”

All figures from within the life insurance industry are expected to follow news of the study with interest.

In all, a staggering 32,582 staff from 50 cities across 31 provinces took the exam, surely one of the largest such test that has ever taken place within the insurance industry.

China Life Insurance was founded in 2003 as part of the new company laws of an emerging free market China. It now has an astonishing 93 million policies, including critical illness cover, decreasing term life insurance and level term life insurance, dwarfing the numbers held by any UK insurer.

Kevin Ma, Chief Executive of ATA, China’s leading computer-based skills tester seemed unfazed by the recent mammoth test of China Life Insurance staff. He commented, “We are pleased with this opportunity to use our leading technology for delivering computer based tests to help China Life Insurance evaluate its internal staff, and we look forward to a long and successful cooperation.”

“The use of computer-based testing technology to assess internal human resources capabilities is at the very early stages of development. We look forward to more customers with mission critical operating systems to qualify staff using ATA's leading testing technologies and nationwide test centre network.”

The senior IFA made her controversial remarks regarding mortgages and the decreasing term life insurance market in June, saying, "Being able to sell protection makes a huge difference, especially when your income has dropped by 50 per cent.

“Frankly, advisors who leave clients without protection in the current climate deserve to be shot," she said.

Her comments come against the background of global economic uncertainty, a housing market lull and a declining mortgage market.

However, there have been recent speculations that the so-called credit crunch is all “media hype”, with 36% of people surveyed by insurer Zurich saying they don’t believe the credit crunch will affect them.

Spokespeople from both Mortgage Talk and Legal & General commented that their advisors would be doing more to sell decreasing term life insurance protection to their mortgage customers.

For example, a 40-year-old male smoker will have to pay around £95 a month for critical illness cover, while his non-smoking counterpart will only have to fork out around £50 a month for the same policy.

Younger smokers are at a disadvantage too. This is demonstrated by the fact that a 25-year-old woman will have to pay around £8 a month for life insurance if she doesn’t smoke, while if she is a smoker the price increases to nearer £12.

A spokesperson from a UK online insurer commented, "Smokers who declare they have given up but continue to smoke, no matter how infrequently, will be paying for nothing should they die from a smoking related condition.

"The policy simply won’t pay out and their beneficiaries will be the losers.

"Smokers will pay twice the price for critical illness cover than a non-smoker – it’s a no win situation for the smoker, their nicotine addiction is tightening both their heart and purse strings"

Smokers can get help quitting at www.quit.org.uk.

There are some exceptions to this. The calculation of premiums for life insurance policies worth more than £500,000, critical illness cover worth more than £300,000 and income protection policies worth more than £30,000 a year will take predictive tests into account, but only those that are approved by the government.

There is little indication as to whether life insurers will continue this moratorium post-2014, but it is clear that they will allow consumers who have obtained favourable results from predictive tests to include this information.

Prospective policyholders will still be required to submit information about significant family health problems.

Stephen Hadrell, Director General of the ABI commented on the announcement, "It means people can insure themselves and their families, even if they have had an adverse result from a predictive genetic test.

"The moratorium has proved effective since its introduction in 2001 and can now continue.”

The life insurance industry will review their stance again in 2011.

The accusation comes at a time when the Office of National Statistics say that unemployment is on the rise and credit crunch is tightening purse strings across the UK, meaning that more and more families’ homes are at risk.

Managing Director of CETA, David Quick, believes that high profile investigations by the FSA have encouraged many consumers to shun decreasing term life insurance in the mistaken belief that cover is neither competitively priced nor effective.

He commented, “We have repeatedly warned that the FSA should draw a clear distinction between competitively priced MPPI and the expensive loan and credit card protection that generated huge profits for banks and retailers."

“Now the housing bubble is bursting and repossession orders soaring, many are likely to lose their homes because they were led to believe they should avoid ‘rip off’ MPPI cover. The FSA’s lack of clarity may have the effect of turning a crisis into a disaster.”

The FSA deny any ambiguity in their approach to drawing a clear line between types of mortgage protection decreasing term life insurance and “expensive loan and credit card protection”, commenting, “We’ve always said that PPI can be a worthwhile product for certain people.

“The changing economic condition does not affect our approach because we are concerned about those customers who would not have been fully covered by the policies they were sold, and therefore would not be effectively covered if they were made redundant.”

She was told she would receive the money when her insurers called her to tell her that they would pay out the critical illness cover money.

The former supermarket worker commented, “It was so out of the blue. I hadn’t heard anything these last few weeks and then to hear about this on the phone was unreal.

“I thought it must have been some kind of joke. I never thought they would pay out. I’d pretty much given up.

“It’s been a long struggle, but thank God it’s all come to an end.”

She also spoke of how the insurance payout would make a real difference to her family, “I’m just so pleased the money’s come through. I was so worried the family might not have been able to cope after I’m gone but now I can pay off the mortgage.”

Throughout her fight, the grandmother of four was supported by her local MP Denis Murphy. He commented, “This is a great result. We have been campaigning very hard on this.

“I’ve been told the meeting is unnecessary because they have settled the claim in full. I’m delighted.” 

But, for now, she will put the critical illness cover win at the back of her mind, saying, “I can’t really enjoy the money because I’m still having chemotherapy. But it’s a fantastic feeling to know I’ll have the security I was always entitled to.”