The current picture for protection sales is mixed as the industry treads the last month to gender neutralisation.
Many insurers have seen no significant trends in take-up as yet, with a handful reporting notable increases in sales.
And the news from brokers is split; some have seen a huge surge in sales while others have seen no change.
Advice firm Highclere Financial Services reported 10% client response to a gender awareness newsletter compared to the 1 or 2% that usually replied to such alerts.
Alan Lakey, partner, said: "The reason why there has been a surge in business is because I made it happen. I wrote to all my clients personally and it gave me the opportunity to re-visit people who had a gap. And it has proved the point that protection is sold not bought. I have seen a 300% increase in sales."
Advice firm The Melia Partnership began notifying clients about G-day in July and has postponed all client enquiries outside of protection "purely and simply" to deal with the increase in applications.
Derek Frost, partner principal, said: "Gender neutralisation has certainly put us in the position where we need to extend the time frame to deal with normal enquiries because we know that from now until 20th December we will be chasing pipeline applications, GP reports and underwriting hold ups.
"Unless advisers have the resources and staff to get on the phone and really chase clients then gender may not have had much impact for them. It is always the case with protection that people need to be dragged kicking and screaming."
He added that in online adviser forums there had been no real activity or discussions among advisers on marketing the gender factor with clients.
"Advisers are too busy with retail investments to bother about protection," Frost said.
Advice firm Relevant Life Policies reported earlier in the month that it had seen a 10% increase in life sales.
But mortgage and protection broker Perception Finance and advice firm Clayton Hulme Partnership reported more ambiguous trends despite campaigning to clients.
Chris Hulme, director at Clayton Hulme, said: "We've seen a marked increase in protection lately but other factors could be blurring this as a measure of G-day influence. It does seem the protection gap is reducing - even if only slightly."
Perception Finance has seen a slight upturn but nothing significant to suggest G-day influence.
Managing director David Sheppard said: "Unfortunately it has not impacted business as much as it could have done.
"It is disappointing that providers did not take the message out beyond the trades. Advisers only have limited reach to clients."
LV= has seen "a notable increase" in business across the board in terms of protection products, and from a mixture of small and large IFA firms.
And it expects to see further increases in the next two weeks in the run up to the deadline.
But other key players, PruProtect and Zurich, said they had not seen any significant patterns to suggest gender neutralisation was having an impact on sales yet.
Comparison site Payingtoomuch.com also reported no change in take-up in the run up to G-day.
Last week, an underwriting and tele-interviewing company said gender had not impacted application numbers.
And earlier in the month British Friendly reported G-day was having no impact on income protection sales specifically.
