The Practical Protection Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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The Practical Protection Podcast

Kathryn Knowles

Business

Education

Health & Fitness

Frequency: 1 episode/15d. Total Eps: 148

When you set out to get things like life insurance, critical illness cover or income protection, many people do not think that they are going to hit any snags along the way. But! Insurance is a world of risk and there are times that a persons circumstances will make insurers sit back and have an extra think about offering the insurance. Why?! This podcast is designed to answer that why. Kathryn Knowles is joined by guests to bring a clear and open chat about how insurance works. Kathryn brings her experience as a "quirky" life and the voice of the consumer to the discussion. She does this alongside her work as a specialist adviser, who is known for insuring the uninsurable.

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Apple Podcasts

🇬🇧 Great Britain - business
16/04/2026
#91
🇬🇧 Great Britain - business
11/04/2026
#97

Spotify

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Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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https://practical-protection.co.uk/
109 shares
https://octomembers.com
65 shares
https://www.adviceforadvisers.co.uk/protection-insurance-training/
49 shares

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RSS feed quality

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Score global : 68%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

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Latest published episodes

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FCA Protection Market Study

Season 11 · Episode 9

Thursday, February 19, 2026 • Duration 39:59

Hi, everyone! I have ended up out of sequence! Last time I said we would be back with an episode on fatty liver disease, but the FCA has published its Protection Market Interim Report, and I absolutely had to cover this.

The good news is that the FCA thinks that the protection industry is working really well, it just needs a couple of tweaks. Overall, I am really happy with what the report says, but there are some areas I don’t agree with and you can hear my views in this episode. I am going through their review of insurance costs, claims, complaints, the role of commissions, restricted panels, loaded premiums and more.

The key takeaways:

Within pure protection products, income protection has the lowest value in terms of cost compared to claims success, but is still much higher than other insurances
Loaded premiums, commission and restricted panels have been analysed and shown to not show significant detriment to consumers
Closing the Protection Gap remains one of the key challenges for the protection insurance industry

There are a lot of insights in the report and it is well worth a read. I’ve tried to pick out certain pages to direct you to, in case you don’t fancy the full thing, it is 47 pages.

Next time Alan will be back with me and we will be covering how fatty liver disease and protection insurance work.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

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Vulnerable Clients

Season 11 · Episode 8

Thursday, February 5, 2026 • Duration 43:35

Hi, everyone! As I am sure you can imagine I am always looking for ideas about what to cover in the podcast. We’ve done lots on health conditions, I’ve done deep dives into insurance products, commented on market developments, but I was absolutely shocked to realise I have not done a specific episode of vulnerable clients.

Most of you probably recognise my name as a specialist protection insurance adviser and really specifically someone that helps people with higher health risks. I’ve often spoken about the needs of vulnerable clients and been involved in multiple industry events for this topic. I’ve even won an award or two.

So it seems silly that I have not covered this before and I am going to make sure that I give you as many tips as I can during the episode.

The key takeaways:

Examples of common vulnerabilities
Guidance on how to build a vulnerable client register
Ways to support your clients and your employees/colleagues when discussing vulnerable situations

Vulnerability is very subjective and it can also change over time. Sometimes people can think, well we’ve never come across this before and we will just handle it if it happens. Which you can do, but it is much easier if you have a clear structured process in place. Your clients and your colleagues will thank you for it.

Next time Alan Knowles will be back with me and we will be deep diving into fatty liver disease.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

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Early Onset Colo-Rectal Cancer

Season 10 · Episode 12

Thursday, June 26, 2025 • Duration 54:14

Hi everyone, I have Kate Baldry joining me today to share her insights into early onset colo-rectal cancer, a diagnosis that is happening more and more. As a Research and Development Underwriter at Hannover Re, Kate has incredible access and insight to claims and health data. Kate has been spending time analysing the increasing rate of bowel cancer diagnoses and any trends that could be causing this.

It was particularly interesting for me as Kate shares that some of the patterns that they have seen are due to people being tall, healthy BMI and having their gallbladder removed - I hit all three of these! The main takeaway that I have from our chat is that whilst these factors might contribute to bowel cancer diagnosis, at the moment it is still very much an unknown. There are a lot of theories but no definitive reason as to why bowel cancer diagnoses are increasing.

The key takeaways:

Early onset bowel cancer is when there is a diagnosis before the age of 50
Deep dives into claims have shown that many claimants had no family history of bowel cancer or other disclosures related to digestive health
The TNM score of the bowel cancer diagnosis is essential in determining what the options for protection insurance will be

Next time I will be joined by Phil Jeynes, who will be sharing with us his story of a bowel cancer diagnosis and what life has been like for him since.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

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Intergenerational Wealth Planning

Season 4 · Episode 7

Thursday, October 7, 2021 • Duration 41:23

Hi everyone, this week we have Andy Woollon from Zurich joining us to talk about intergenerational wealth planning, and how protection insurance is a fundamental part of someone’s financial plan.

Following on from the recent Income Protection Task Force week, protection insurance and wealth planning feels like a natural mix. If you haven’t seen the sessions yet, check out Wealth Wednesday on YouTube, with Setul Mehta, Gemma Darcy, Victor Sacks, Mike Allison and Daniel Weaver.

The key takeaways:

The concept of using income protection to protect the bank of mum and dad.
The use of protection insurance when taking early pension drawdowns.
Using a cashflow model to show a client and yourself what can happen to the financial plan if income protection isn’t in place.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me again and we will be focusing upon arranging insurance when you are living with lupus. There’s also a real need to make sure that you are very clear about whether the person you are speaking to has lupus or if they are a carrier of the gene, as it can really alter the insurances that will be available.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

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Inbetweenysode: Commission vs Fees

Season 4

Thursday, September 23, 2021 • Duration 30:07

Hi everyone, I am back a little earlier than usual with an Inbetweenysode. I think most people reading this will be aware that there has been a bit of a social media kerfuffle recently. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not advisers should charge fees to their clients and if commission-based firms are transparent to clients.

This episode is providing a background to these different approaches to adviser remuneration, there’s pros and cons to each, and I hope that you think it is a balanced account of what they are.

The key takeaways:

Why some firms offer fee-based advice and others work on a commission-based model.
The difference between indemnity and non-indemnity insurance.
The importance of transparency and client choice.

Next time Roy McLoughlin is back and we have Andy Woollon from Zurich, chatting to us about the role of protection insurance in intergenerational wealth planning. I find this side of advice fascinating and I hope that it gives you some more ideas too.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

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Blood Cancer

Season 4 · Episode 6

Thursday, September 16, 2021 • Duration 01:02:04

Hi everyone, we are back and talking about blood cancer. In this episode Matt explains how the different blood cancers affect the body, which has really helped me to visualise what happens when they develop.

The key takeaways:

There are 250,000 living with blood cancer in the UK.
There are different types of blood cancer: leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN).
A case study of life insurance for someone living with CLL phenotypes.

We also have a brief discussion of someone’s right to forget that they have had cancer, in France and Belgium. This is something that is not yet done in the UK, it is an interesting concept, it would open up the options to a lot of people to get insurance and we discuss why that would be a good thing, and also the knock-on effects it would have across the market.

Next time I am going to be doing an Inbetweenysode. There has been a lot of chatter recently about advisers taking fees or a commission for their work. I am going to do a shortish episode about this, focusing upon explaining both routes.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

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Skin Cancer

Season 4 · Episode 5

Thursday, August 26, 2021 • Duration 48:09

Hi everyone, we are back with an episode on skin cancer, something that we think is incredibly important to think about during these summer months. I’m sorry that the podcast is out a week later than usual, but with all of the mummy vs work juggling of the summer holidays, I needed to take a little extra time so I don’t burnout.

This episode is so important and came with quite a shock to me. Matt Rann had told me that he would like to do an episode on skin cancer and I agreed that it would be a good area to cover. For me, I think there is sometimes a misconception that skin cancer is a ‘lesser’ cancer and will not affect insurance applications as much as something like breast cancer. The shock came from Matt, when he started explaining to me that his brother had died from skin cancer.

This is not an episode to be missed. We talk about making sure that you wear suntan lotion, even in the UK when it is cloudy, as skin cancer can do significant harm to the body even if it just looks like a small lump or blemish on the outside.

The key takeaways:

Skin cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the UK.
The amount of people diagnosed with skin cancer has increased, more than any other cancer, in the last decade.
A case study client with atypical mole syndrome that needed life insurance to cover his mortgage.

Roy McLoughlin is back with me next time and I am quite excited as we should be having a face to face meet up beforehand. If the weather behaves, it might be a barbecue at the Knowles house later this week (with suntan lotion to hand!).

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Gender and Income Protection

Season 4 · Episode 4

Thursday, August 5, 2021 • Duration 43:42

Hi everyone, we have Jo Elphick from Legal & General joining me and Roy McLoughlin in this episode. Legal & General have been looking at how gender influences the way that people engage with group income protection insurance. The statistics are quite interesting!

65% of women surveyed believe that income protection is relevant to them, versus only 35% of men that felt it is worthwhile

As we talk through the findings, Jo helps us to understand the way that women tend to see the value of income protection more than men, yet less women than men take up and engage with this policy type. We talk about how women traditionally tend to address health concerns early on, in contrast to their ‘invincible’ male counterparts, which means we really should be shouting from the rooftops about how group support services can help them and their immediate family.

The key takeaways:

Some reasons for people not engaging with group income protection include not understanding what the policy is, their partner’s sorting out all the finance stuff, and fear that employers might learn too much about their health.
Messages about group insurance support services are not often filtered to employees well, being lost amongst all the noise of employment contracts and onboarding procedures.
Storytelling that demonstrates the benefits of engaging with group support services, is where we can show how income protection isn't’ just about money, it’s about wellbeing too.

Next time, Matt Rann is back with me and we are chatting about skin cancer and how it can affect your insurance options. I think people are often surprised at how much someone having had skin cancer can alter the terms on offer. I also think a lot of people are shocked when they hear that you should wear suncream everyday in the UK. Yes, even though we only get 5 days of sunshine a year, you should always have suncream on.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

Transgender

Season 4 · Episode 3

Thursday, July 22, 2021 • Duration 44:10

Hi everyone, I have Matt Rann back with me, fresh from his holiday in Madeira. I am a tad jealous, but I imagine many of you like me have had absolutely glorious weather this weekend, so I’m not feeling too bitter.

Matt is joining me to chat about accessing insurance when someone is transgender. As with many things the insurance world has made clear growth in how it underwrites insurance applications for people that are transgender. It’s not yet perfect, but it’s much better than it was and we talk through how things have changed over the years.

The key takeaways:

There are approximately 600,000 people that are transgender or non-binary within the UK.
Transgender is not a mental health condition, but you might end up having to answer questions as if it is, in an insurance application form.
A case study detailing life insurance and income protection for a transgender man.

Next time, I have Roy McLoughlin and Jo Elphick from Legal & General joining me. We are going to be chatting about group insurance, income protection and some research that shows the differences in how men and women approach these areas.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

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Objection Handling

Season 4 · Episode 2

Thursday, July 8, 2021 • Duration 51:52

Hi everyone, we are talking about something that strikes dread within advisers... objection handling. Ok maybe not dread for an experienced adviser who has pretty much heard it all, but for people stepping into the protection space this can be quite nerve wracking.

Roy McLoughlin is back with me and we are discussing the common objections that he hears within the pensions space, and how these seem to mirror objections to protection insurance too.

The key takeaways:

Common objections are, “I’m too young”, “It’s too expensive”, “It won’t happen to me”.
The average cost of an income protection policy is £1 a day.
You need to tailor your advice recommendation to match what the client cares about and there is a fine balance between disturbance and scaremongering.

Next time, I am speaking with Matt Rann for his first outing of Season 4. We are going to be chatting about accessing insurance when you are transgender. With us just having had PRIDE month, it feels like now is a good time to dispel some myths around service and potential terms of insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

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The Practical Protection Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

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The Practical Protection Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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Publication history

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