The Money Advice Service (MAS) is working on "difficult" plans to measure take-up and success of simple protection products.
Jackie Spencer, proposition manager at MAS and panellist at the Marketforce Future of Protection event today, said: "We are here to help those people who want protection. Protection is an important part of the service we want to deliver. We need to bring home the message of raising awareness of products.
"But it is not all about product. Alone, a simple product is not going to solve the problem."
Delegate Gee Gillingham, heading affinity development at Phoenix group, said simple products were "interesting" but questioned the MAS budget to drive consumer awareness of them.
Spencer said: "We have specific targets set out in our business plan around protection. But it is difficult because is we send someone towards a provider then we do not know if they take up a product or not so it is hard to measure.
"We are working on measures and controls to monitor that side of things."
Martin Werth, chief executive of Underwriteme, said the key point was about processes as well as product.
Mark Anders, sales and marketing director at Friends Life, said: "The product being simple is important but it is all about the consumer journey. There is a lot of work to be done on getting simple products, or any products through the distribution channels. We can learn a lot from general insurance.
"Simple products are here to stay and we need to embrace that move."
Matthew Gledhill, managing director of newby D2C provider Beagle Street, said the simple products movement would see brand new entrants coming into the market.
Protection will be one of five metrics outlined in the MAS' business plan set to be published next week.
