With 1.8 million borrowers remortgaging in 2026, brokers have a clear window to close the income protection gap
Royal London paid a record £821 million in protection claims in 2025. Buried in the figures is a number that matters more to mortgage brokers than the headline.
The mutual paid £9.6 million in IP claims last year, supporting 1,536 customers at an 85.2% payout rate. Whole of life paid £282 million. Term life and terminal illness paid £326 million. The problem is not that IP fails claimants – it is that almost nobody has it.
Aviva's 2025 claims data tells the same story: nearly £2bn paid out across all protection lines, yet individual IP accounted for just £63.5 million of that total despite covering over 4,000 claimants. Across the market, IP remains the protection product with the highest need and the lowest take-up.
The numbers behind the gap
Research published in May 2026 by LifeSearch and HomeOwners Alliance found that 86% of UK mortgage holders have no income protection in place, even though almost half would struggle to meet repayments within six months of losing their income. AMI research puts overall IP ownership among UK adults at just 7% - against 32% for life insurance and 11% for critical illness.
The maths is unforgiving. Statutory Sick Pay currently pays a maximum of £123.25 per week. The average UK mortgage repayment is £1,428 per month. For any client without a generous employer sick pay scheme – and especially for the self-employed – a single period of illness is enough to put a mortgage at risk.
Why 2026 is the moment to act
With 1.8 million borrowers coming off fixed-rate deals this year, brokers have a concentrated window to re-engage clients whose circumstances have shifted since they last took out – or declined – protection. Incomes change. Dependants are added. A client who waived IP on a first-time purchase may now be carrying a significantly larger mortgage with more to lose.
The gap between intention and action is already documented. Mortgage Introducer's own research found 53% of advisers do not discuss general insurance with remortgage clients regularly, despite 83% wanting to grow their GI business. The remortgage pipeline is there. The conversations are not happening.
Why IP keeps getting skipped
Life insurance attaches naturally to the mortgage transaction. Income protection requires a separate conversation – employment status, employer sick pay, deferred periods, savings buffers – and in a busy completions period it is the policy most likely to be deferred. The broker channel accounts for around 36% of UK IP sales, a meaningful share, but with uptake still in the low single digits among mortgage holders, the gap between what is being sold and what is needed remains vast.
Royal London's Helping Hand data adds a further dimension: GP appointments through the service rose 21% year-on-year in 2025 and RedArc nurse support access increased 12%. Clients are experiencing more health events — but most have no financial cover for them.
The Consumer Duty dimension
For brokers, this is not only a revenue question. Where a client's mortgage depends on a single income with no sick pay beyond the statutory minimum, failing to address IP in the advice process is hard to defend on a file under Consumer Duty. The mortgage disclosure itself states that the home is at risk if repayments are not maintained. IP is the product that directly addresses that risk. Advisers who embed a consistent IP conversation at both purchase and remortgage are better positioned to demonstrate good outcomes – not just suitable transactions.
The bottom line
Royal London's 2025 figures confirm that the protection market works: 98.4% of claims paid, £821 million distributed, 62,412 customers supported. But the £9.6 million paid in income protection – against a backdrop of millions of unprotected mortgage holders – is the number that deserves attention. With 1.8 million remortgage conversations ahead in 2026, brokers have a clear opportunity. Most of them just need to start the conversation.
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