Le Beau co-founded promotion and review group Protection Review with Andy Couchman in 2003 as well as the Income Protection Task Force, which spearheaded the Seven Families campaign from 2014 to 2016.
Protection stalwart Peter Le Beau is retiring at the end of the year.
Le Beau co-founded promotion and review group Protection Review with Andy Couchman in 2003 as well as the Income Protection Task Force in 2005, which spearheaded the Seven Families campaign from 2014 to 2016.
Le Beau said: "I've decided that now is the time to step away from the industry.
“I think there is a need for fresh voices and new leaders with energy and new ideas.
“Over the next few months I will be transitioning out of a range of activities, but I will still be involved with some consultancy work and will continue to run The-Net-Work [a financial services networking group].
“I've had an incredibly satisfying career and will have been involved in the industry for almost 50 years when I retire.”
Le Beau started his career at British and European before moving to Swiss Re in 1981 where he was initially head of underwriting and later head of UK marketing.
He left in 2001 to set up Le Beau Visage, an umbrella group for his consultancy work.
He sits on the boards of a number of companies on a non-executive basis, including software company Fineos, the insurer Exeter Friendly and care advisory service Red Arc.
Le Beau is one of the industry’s most well-regarded figures.
Tom Baigrie, chief executive of LifeSearch, said: “Peter has been a force for good in the world of protection for decades.
“He is the most caring and collegiate of men, a genuine professional with his heart in the right place and a huge streak of altruism running right through him.
“Though he truly deserves his retirement he will be sorely missed. I first met him in 2004 at a conference he organised to improve what the industry did for consumers.”
He added: “That has been his lifelong professional purpose and he has worked tirelessly over the years to encourage insurers to do things better.
“His polite persistence has served the protection consumer and this our market, in a way no-one else has equalled.
“The establishment of the IPTF and then the Seven Families initiative has been key to the recent growth of income protection sales."
