Panellists speaking at the Protection Review conference today shared the view that simple protection products are the future but worried that developing truly simple products could be a rod for the industry's back.
Steve Casey from Friends Life said: "All the time consumers are shouting make it easy, make it quick.
"But I'm not sure providers will have the appetite to provide simplified products."
Richard Freeman from MDG Capita went a step further and said the label "simple" was "dangerous" to protection providers.
And he said: "It'll get slapped back in our faces."
In practice Freeman said post issue audit was likely to be how insurers provide simplicity.
He said: "Post issue audit is probably something that'll come into the frame around simplified products - if I have to use that term - and I think that's something a lot of insurers are currently looking at."
Stuart Paton-Evans from Hannover Life Re said the protection market had to grow to cover more people and acknowledged that simple products could be the way to achieve that.
And he added: "Simple doesn't have to mean basic, it can include easy to transact or easy for the consumer.
"There's a massive opportunity to get more people covered and to pool the industry's risk differently - simple may be the way to this.
"Cheaper isn't necessarily the definition of simple though."
Scottish Widows bancassurance and protection specialist Johnny Timpson was more supportive of simplifying protection though.
He said: "It has to be about the consumer. We have to make it simple to buy, simple to own, simple to review and change.
"We should provide protection in simple English and make it simple to claim on products that simply deliver the protection promise."
Moneysupermarket's head of protection Emma Walker said expecting customers to read a 69 page document to understand the features of their protection cover was unreasonable.
And she added: "It isn't right, we need to change, we need to think."
Phil Jeynes, head of account development at PruProtect, highlighted that no one has yet defined what "simplified products" means.
And he added: "A product that covers one illness is simple but it's not good for the customer.
"Unfortunately comprehensive products are often complicated which is where a good intermediary comes in."
