Income protection sustainable or just more noise?

Having been in insurance for 20 years this year, I have seen plenty on the income protection front. However, the latest noise about IP sustainability being made in Australia and here, by Naomi Ballantyne from Partners Life, is somewhat concerning.

(Ballantyne's in-depth article featured in ASSET Magazine. To get a copy email your postal address here.)

Back in the early 2000s, we had similar noise about the sustainability of income protection and disability products, yet here we are with drastically better products than we had 20 years ago. Albeit with higher premiums, though incomes and other costs of living have also moved upwards.

While I haven’t had the opportunity to look directly at the research mentioned in the articles on sustainability, I do have extensive knowledge across the product set over the past two decades.