Gavin Maguire on traditional protection business

1. What are the main challenges for insurers around traditional protection business?

“Insurers face increasing competition, rising acquisition costs, and growing pressure to achieve efficiency at scale. Attracting new customers has become more demanding. In all markets, distribution engagement is critical, and the need to focus on offering compelling products is clear. Across regions, the challenge is to grow sustainably in an ever-competitive environment.”

2. What are the biggest opportunities?

“A significant protection gap remains. It is striking how many people still have no form of cover. Insurance is not yet reaching everyone it could reach, even though it sits at the heart of financial security. There is clear potential to expand coverage, including across emerging consumer segments shaped by socio-economic change. Data and AI can help streamline insurance processes, strengthen financial education, and better align protection products with real-life needs.”

3. How can these challenges and opportunities be addressed? “The focus must be on practical, scalable solutions that attract new customers. Accelerating and simplifying the insurance journey is therefore key. At Hannover Re, we support our clients by enhancing our digital solutions for automated underwriting and continually refining our underwriting manual, hr | Ascent, to make insurance cover more accessible to more people. By leveraging data and AI, we help clients streamline processes, identify purchasing triggers, and tailor solutions to different customer cohorts rather than relying on one-size-fits-all approaches.”

4. What’s the impact? “Clients can accelerate underwriting, improve conversion rates, and enhance the customer experience with our support. More accessible underwriting approaches enable them to expand insurance coverage to broader segments while maintaining portfolio quality. Clients can leverage data more effectively to strengthen product development. This allows them to tailor offerings more precisely to customer needs and drive sustainable growth in traditional protection business.”

5. What else helps turn challenges into opportunities? “Close collaboration and pragmatic execution make a difference. Our empowered market teams support clients in developing solutions precisely tailored to their specific markets and risk environments. We bring speed in decision-making, creativity, and technical depth to every collaboration, turning shared ambition into tangible results. Ultimately, expanding access to protection and strengthening financial security remains at the heart of our industry – and of our partnerships.”