Chief Executive Report

Strategic Report Strategic Aims

The Society focuses on four strategic aims which are:

1 2 3 4

We aim to offer attractive protection products and propositions that meet the needs of working people and which intermediaries will want to recommend to their clients. To do this we will ensure that we understand the needs of our customers, and design value for money products that differentiate against competitors using our Mutual advantage.

We want to create an excellent experience for intermediaries, so they will consider us for their clients and our membership will grow. We will ensure that we design services that are simple and easy to use and remove barriers to working with us. We will work closely with intermediaries to develop their business with the common interest of putting their clients first.

We strive to deliver the best service for our members, guided by our promise to do the right thing for our members. We are known for being compassionate and caring by our members and achieving fantastic service, including paying valid claims promptly, supporting members through their recovery and finding faster ways of helping new customers get the cover they seek. We want our members to value their membership and want to remain members.

We aspire to be a great place for our colleagues to work so that they will want to contribute their talents, deliver the best service for our members and intermediaries, and ensure that the Society can execute its plans in an efficient and agile way so it can prosper in an increasingly competitive market.

By putting our members at the heart of everything we do, more members and intermediaries will recommend us, and we will grow, ensuring we have a strong capital base and are able to deliver even more benefits for our members.

Business Model

The Society’s business model is to take on risk for members to provide them financial security should they become incapacitated and be unable to work. The Society designs, builds and administers products, so that the Society can meet the specific needs of customers and provide excellent service to members and intermediaries.

Operations, Claims and Underwriting, as well as most of the key functions, are managed in-house. We outsource a small number of specialist functions, including Actuarial, Internal Audit and Investment Management and we partner with specialist third-parties for rehabilitation and systems development including the provision of technology services.

Business Performance Membership

The Society’s membership consists of Protect members and members who hold a ‘Holloway-style’ product. The ‘Holloway-style’ products are not available for new members and therefore the number of members has been falling for many years. The number of ‘Holloway-style’ members reduced in 2022 from 6,607 to 6,054. The number of Protect members fell in 2021 but the Society has returned to growth in 2022 as the membership increased from 24,497 to 25,432 due to an increase in the volume of new business sales. In 2023, we aim to grow the Protect membership once again through the product and proposition developments we have undertaken as well as the flexibility our new technology brings to our products and services.

3.8% increase in membership