Protection sales figures prove G-day has no impact?

Underwriter MorganAsh has looked at the numbers of protection and annuities applications across insurers and broker partners, including Canada Life, the Bank of Ireland and Aviva Ireland, and has detected no change as of the end of October.

The monthly variation of protection applications, measured over the last year of sales, is 4.5%; 55% of applications were purchased by male and 45% for female.

According to MorganAsh, there has been "no distortion" of the proportions being purchased by either gender.

Sales for male applications in August stood at 57% and for September 56%, while the latest figures for October show there was no change at 56%.

Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh, said: "There is always a little bit of variance for no rhyme or reason anyway. We have tried to look for patterns but there has been no change so far.

"There have been many hypotheses and views on how gender neutralisation will change the purchasing of the public, particularly if there will be bias by either gender to purchase prior to the end of the year. How much of this theory will occur in practice has yet to be seen."

He added actuaries would be pleased to find that there had been no distortions in terms of pricing.

John Morgan, financial adviser at Pethericks & Gillards, said the firm had seen no specific surges in applications according to gender.

He said: "It could have been a missed opportunity. The regulator expects the people at the sharp end to give all the news and information but advisers have a limited number of clients that they are dealing with. The gender message was not one that went beyond the trades."

Morgan added that people would also need more incentive to buy protection than just the price factor.

British Friendly was the first to report earlier in the month that the incoming gender neutralisation had not affected income protection sales.

MorganAsh processes applications from multiple companies across multiple distribution channels.