The market for Medico-Legal and Insurance Services (MLIS) – defined as medical and medical-related services offered to legal services companies, insurers and possibly to employers – declined in 2021 by around 5%, on the back of a near 20% decline in 2020. The premium end of the market has recovered well from the pandemic but the lower end of the market was hit by the new whiplash reforms and the continued delays in handling lower value personal injury legal cases. Reflecting this, employment in the industry is also down in 2021 compared with 2019, despite the support the industry enjoyed from the Government’s furlough scheme.
These findings come for the IRN Reports Medico-Legal and Insurance Services Market, 2022.
Over 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 caused a significant decline in personal injury and CN case numbers. Data from the Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) shows the overall number of cases fell by over 10% between 2020/21 to 2021/22, following on from a 32% decline in the previous year. The lower end of the market was especially hard hit in 2021, with the number of small track and fast track cases down by 17% in 2021. Reflecting this, the number of searches on the MedCo system resulting in a selection of a medical expert fell by almost 16% in 2021, after a 30% fall in 2020.
This report looks at the Medico-Legal and Insurance Services (MLIS) market, which encompasses two broad categories of service: Medical evidence (ME) – including medico-legal report writing; and Rehabilitation and allied medical services (RAMS).
This report looks at the market structure, recent developments and market drivers, the key players, the market size and trends and the future.
Related IRN Reports
Clinical Negligence 2021 (to be updated in July 2022)
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Based on their ownership of a range of financial assets, including cash savings, retail investments, private and workplace pensions, consumers split into two roughly equal camps. 51% fall into the Have Nots camp and 49% into the Haves camp. Haves, as their name implies, own a wide range of financial assets and are especially likely to hold some retail investment products, plus have workplace and/or private pensions. In contrast, the Have Nots hold most of their assets as cash in bank or building society accounts with hardly any having retail investments and relatively few having private or workplace pensions.
These findings come from the IRN Research report How the Other Half Lives, 2022. This report looks at the financial lives of consumers in the UK.
Both the Haves and Have Nots segment into two sub-groups based on their ownership of financial assets. This results in four groups of consumers overall. In terms of the level of financial wealth they have and the variety of financial assets owned, they rank from the wealthiest Haves to the least wealthy Have Nots as follows:
HAVES: Upper Class. Haves who own the most comprehensive range of financial assets, including riskier retail investment products and pensions. This group includes the affluent employed, often working in managerial positions.
HAVES: Middle Class. Haves who focus more on savings and investment products, especially low risk investment products like National Savings and cash. Central to this group are affluent mature consumers including the retired who have a private or workplace pension.
HAVE NOTS: Lower Class. Have Nots, who while mainly owning cash savings products may also own pension products. This group includes the poor employed, often females in non-managerial positions or working part-time. It is likely many in this group own pension products only because of auto enrolment.
HAVE NOTS: Precariat, i.e. precarious and proletariat. Have Nots who only have cash in banks or building societies. Central to this group are the poor mature, including the retired who are living on State pensions.
The Have Not consumers are very vulnerable to a downturn in their incomes, this being especially so for the Precariat. The level of wealth held by the Have Nots means if they were to face a loss of income or rising costs necessitating them to liquidate wealth that can be easily turned into cash (i.e. savings and investments) to pay for day-to-day expenses, they would be immediately exposed to financial hardship.
This report looks at the financial lives of consumers in the UK. It looks at two groups of consumers: The Financial Haves and the Financial Have Nots. The report looks at the financial assets held by these groups, their level of financial wealth, their financial priorities and goals, their use of financial advisors and their vulnerability to financial scams. The financial assets considered in this report are: Cash savings, Retail Investments and Pensions.
For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+.
Retail Financial Advice Consumer Research Report 2022
UK Retail Financial Advisors (Market Trends Report) 2021
Wealthy Savers And Investors 2022
UK Consumer Savers And Investors(Market Trends Report) 2022
The UK Family Law Market Trends Report 2022 is the eighth edition of an annual report from IRN Research and provides an overview of the UK family law market. The report comes at a time of major changes in the sector including the arrival of no-fault divorces, new legislation for domestic abuse cases, more encouragement for mediation, and a strong growth in online divorce applications.
Estimated revenue in the family law market increased by 4.1% in 2021 driven primarily by a strong increase in financial remedy matters needing legal advice and growth in advice for high net worth individuals plus international cases. Court backlogs were a problem pre-Covid and were exacerbated during the pandemic but these backlogs began to be addressed in 2021 and this led to an increase in family court cases completed in 2021 compared to 2020. However, new cases started declined.
One of the possible benefits of the court backlogs could be a move to more disputes settled by mediation and arbitration without the need for a court appearance. The number of professional mediators has been increasing in recent years and a new public funding initiative using vouchers to encourage more mediation was launched in 2021. Mediation starts increased in 2020/21.
The family law sector is a fragmented one and the majority of law firms are medium sized and small general practice firms. At the top end of the market are some large international law firms working on legal issues for high net worth individuals and cross border matters, a selection of large UK firms with some focusing on volume family work and others offering services relating to more complex cases. There are a growing number of specialist family law firms.
Some recent statistics for England and Wales are:
Matrimonial cases (primarily divorce) are by far the largest group of cases in the family law courts – 41% of cases started – but cases started declined in 2021 by 4.5%. Divorce petitions filed in 2021 decreased for the third year running.
Over three-quarters of all divorce petitions were filed digitally compared to only 11% in 2019, the first year of data following the launch of the MoJ’s online divorce portal.
Financial remedy applications increased significantly, by 21.6% on the previous year.
In 2021, there were decreases in Children Act and adoption cases and domestic violence case numbers were similar to 2020.
IRN Research is expecting higher value growth in the market in 2022 compared to 2021 although the arrival of no-fault divorces adds some uncertainty to the market: will this lead to more DIY divorces or will it enable more advisors to develop services that can deal with both parties together? Even if the divorce process becomes easier, it is still likely that there will be a demand for advice on financial settlements and child arrangements. International family law cases are also on the increase.
Continued court backlogs and the possibility of more transparency in court proceedings are likely to encourage more individuals to turn to arbitration and mediation.
The UK Family Law Market Report 2022 is available directly from IRN Research, priced at £200. The report can be ordered on our Reports page or by email to dmort@irn-research.com
While 67% of consumers own at least one type of workplace pension, seven in ten of workplace pension holders have a workplace pension with their current employer.
Affluent consumers, especially those in intermediate or senior managerial positions, who are working full time are the most likely to own a workplace pension. Working full time and being aged between 25-44 plays a key role in determining ownership of workplace pensions. This is no doubt related to the introduction of auto enrolment (AE) into the workplace pension market in 2012. Most consumers who are currently employed but do not have a workplace pension with their current employer, have voluntarily taken a decision not to be enrolled or to leave a workplace scheme.
These findings come from the IRN Research report Workplace Pensions 2022.
The most common arrangement is for workplace pension holders to only have a defined contribution (DC) pension (four-in-ten), with just under one-third only having a defined benefit (DB) pension. Around one-in-ten workplace pension holders own both types of pension. One-in-five workplace pension holders are not sure what type of pension they have. These consumers include a high percentage of part-time workers who seem detached from or lack interest in their workplace pensions.
This report considers the types of workplace pensions owned, how individuals contribute to their pensions, if individuals have taken money from any of their workplace pensions, their use of financial advice and their retirement goals.
For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+. This generated a sample of 1,449 individuals who own any type of workplace pension.
Related IRN Reports
DC Pensions 2022 – consumer research report
The UK Legal Services Market Report 2022 is available directly from IRN Research, priced at £400.
58% of consumers own at least one type of DC pension. Among DC pension holders, over eight-in-ten own a private pension (mainly a standard or stakeholder pension) and around six-in-ten own a workplace pension, with 40% of DC pension holders also owning a DB pension.
The average UK consumer with either a private or workplace DC pension has £78,609 invested in their DC pensions. The average sum held in workplace and private pensions are similar. The distribution of DC pension fund wealth is very uneven and highly skewed. While over one-quarter of DC pension holder have funds of less than £5,000, 11% have funds of £200,000 and more.
These findings come from the IRN Research report DC Pensions 2022.
The report considers the types of pensions owned, how individuals contribute to their pensions, if individuals have taken money from any of their DC pensions, their use of financial advice and their retirement goals.
For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+. This generated a sample of 1,245 individuals who own any type of DC pension.
Wealthy Investors are defined as UK consumers with investible wealth held in savings, investments or defined contribution (DC) pensions of £100,000 and above. Wealthy Investors as defined in this report, represent 15% of all consumers. The typical Wealthy investors has, in average, £373.535 in investible wealth. These findings come from the IRN Research report Wealthy Investors and Savers 2022
Wealthy Investors, as might be assumed, tend to be more affluent, from higher social grades compared with other consumers. The likelihood of a consumer being a Wealthy Investor tends to rise with income, social grade and age, with men more likely to be Wealthy Investors compared with females. The highest average level of investible wealth is owned by Wealthy Investors aged 55+. Wealthy investors aged 55+, collectively own 62% of all the investible wealth owned by UK consumers.
In the past year, over half of Wealthy Investors have made new investments/contributions into the assets they own, with 89% of saving product owners, 65% of retail investment product owners, 61% of private DC pension owners and 72% of DC workplace pension owners making new investments.
This report considers the composition of Wealthy Investor wealth, how Wealthy Investors invest money, their use of financial advisors, their financial priorities and their exposure to scams and investment mis-selling. For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+. This generated a sample of 326 individuals who own combined investible investment, savings and private pension wealth of £100,000 and above.
Retail Financial Advice Consumer Research Report 2022
How Consumers Invest 2022 (Consumer Research Report)
UK Consumer Savers And Investors 2022 (Market Data Report)
UK Retail Financial Advisors – Market Trends Report 2021
36% of Investors (equivalent to 18% of all consumers) have used a financial advisor in the past three years, where financial advice must be paid for and is personal to the Investor (e.g. it is regulated financial advice). These Advice Takers generally use the same advisor across multiple financial products, with three-quarters using the same advisor for their investment, savings and pension decisions. Moreover, over six-in-ten Advice Takers rely heavily on their advisor, with the advisor managing all or most of the Investor’s investments, savings and pensions. Independent financial advisors (IFAs) are the most popular type of advisor, used by almost four-in-ten Advice Takers over the previous three years.
These findings come from the IRN Research report Retail Financial Advice 2022. For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+. This generated a sample of 1,076 individuals who own any type of investment product.
The use of financial advisors is highest for Investors who are below the age of 45, from the A social grade and who own above average levels of wealth (£100,069 on average, compared with £73,657 for all Investors). Advice Takers also tend to own more investment products compared with Non-Advice Takers, reflecting their greater level of wealth.
There is potential to expand the use of advisors by Investors. Over six-in-ten Non-Advice takers are open to taking some form of advice in the future. Despite its low current usage, there are indications that Robo advice could become more popular in the future for both Non-Advice Takers and Advice Takers. Over half of Investors using a financial adviser express an interest in Robo Advisors as do over one-third of Investors who currently do not use any type of advisor.
The aim of this report is to study how UK consumers obtain and judge the advice they receive when they make financial investment decisions. The report considers what types of consumer take financial advice, on what subjects advice is sought, how advisors are used and selected and why consumers owning retail investment products would not take advice.
See a detailed description of the report
Related IRN Reports
How Consumer Invest 2022 (Consumer Research Report)
UK Consumers and Savers 2022 (Market Data Report)
UK Retail Financial Advisors 2021 (Market Data Report)
The UK Wills, Probate & Trusts Market Report 2022 is the 8th edition of an annual research report from IRN Research. Here are some selected findings:
PDF report is £200 (no VAT). For more details and ways to order see http://www.irn-research.com/market-research-reports/
Consumers split into two even camps: 50% can be defined as Investors (i.e., they own at least one type of investment product), with the other half not owning any form of investment product (i.e. non-Investors). These findings come from the IRN Research report How Consumers Invest 2022, published today.
Investors, as might be assumed, tend to be more affluent, from higher social grades compared with non-Investors. The likelihood of a consumer being an Investor tends to rise with income, social grade and age, with men more likely to be Investors compared with females.
The typical Investor holds an investment portfolio valued at £73,657. Older affluent consumers, especially those who are retired and have income from a private or workplace pension, have the highest levels of wealth. In general, like the tendency to be an Investor, the level of wealth among Investors tends to rise with income and social grade and is higher among males rather than females.
The aim of this report is to study how UK consumers behave when they make financial investment decisions. The report considers what types of products consumers hold, how they purchase and invest and what factors influence their purchases. It also considers how consumer investment behaviour has been influenced by developments like Covid-19 and potential investment frauds. For this report, IRN Research commissioned Maru/Blue to conduct a survey among its online panel, drawing on a nationally representative sample of 2,148 UK adults aged 18+. This generated a sample of 1,076 individuals who own any type of investment product.
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