Gender-neutral increases will move providers away from competing on price and restore a more consumer-led market, Friends Life has said.
Mark Anders, sales and marketing director at the provider, said margins had been eroded over the last few years and competition between providers had been driven by price.
He said: "The increases we will end up with will probably just return the market to the prices we had a few years ago. People say it will have a negative impact on the market, but the consumer is not aware enough to notice the price changes. We are feeling pretty bullish about the year ahead."
Friends Life reported protection business was up 136% for December last year when comparing year-on-year figures.
Anders said the insurer was now getting back to business as usual after the G-Day surge adding: "Inevitably we will monitor gender-split risk but as long as we believe we have the correct price already there should not be anything unexpected."
Brendan Farrell, director at Farrell Independent, said the industry would never totally move away from price given the rise of comparison sites and aggregators.
He said: "We favour insurers that are not completely focused on price. If the Gender Directive price increases gets the industry away from price-led products and geared more to consumer-led products it will be a good thing for intermediaries."
