Exploring MoneyView 2026 insurance data

MoneyView 2026 is our nationally representative survey of over 12,000 adults living in the UK, carried out during Summer 2025. It offers a unique insight into the population’s financial situation and their current feelings towards their finances.

Half of respondents were asked a series of questions about general insurance. They told us about which insurance products they had, and we asked about their understanding of and attitudes towards insurance.

The research examines who holds home insurance products, how well people understand them, how they feel about them, and evidence on where protection gaps exist.

The data shows that those most exposed to financial shocks are the least protected. Lower insurance holding is strongly associated with:

• low financial wellbeing scores – as measured by the Financial Fitness tool
• being young, single, or a single parent
• renting (especially social renting)
• low income
• living in more deprived areas
• having mental or physical health conditions
• belonging to an ethnic minority group.

Older people are more likely to hold individual insurance policies, while younger adults are more likely to rely on packaged insurance, such as through bank accounts, often without fully understanding the cover provided.

Insurance holding is also positively associated with holding credit products, regular saving behaviour (even after controlling for income) and higher overall financial wellbeing.

The most important insight from the data analysis is that attitudes to insurance matter more than understanding when it comes to insurance holding, particularly among lower income and vulnerable groups.

Vulnerable groups are:

• less likely to believe they will be treated fairly if they make a claim
• less likely to be aware of the risk of premium increases even if they don’t make a claim
• much more likely to find insurance confusing
• less confident about how to choose suitable products
• less likely to know where to go to get information.

There are gaps in understanding and closing these, especially in higher income groups, could increase insurance take up. However, overall misunderstanding and confusion around insurance appears relatively low, implying that these factors aren’t the biggest barriers to people taking out insurance products

This suggests that traditional information-based interventions are unlikely to be effective for those in vulnerable groups and most at risk of underinsurance.

MaPS commissioned Aston University’s Centre for Personal Financial WellbeingOpens in a new window to analyse data from its MoneyView 2026 survey, which is a survey of over 12,000 adults living in the UK. Around 6,300 people answered questions about insurance. 

Although insurance can be the difference between an unexpected event being a mere setback or a crisis, financially vulnerable people who would struggle the most to recover from a burglary or a broken boiler are often the least likely to be covered.

Young adults, renters, people on low incomes and those with health conditions are less likely to be insured, more likely to find insurance confusing, less sure where to find information, and less confident they would be treated fairly if they made a claim.

These insights can help MaPS, government, industry and partners to design guidance and support that helps more people protect themselves and build their financial resilience.

The research suggests that the following approaches to improving insurance take up are more likely to be successful:

• focusing on shifting attitudes, for example around perceived value for money, trust and fairness
• improving price transparency and addressing the poverty premium 
• better signposting to where people can find and compare suitable cover, given how many are unsure where to look
• positioning insurance as part of building financial resilience and wellbeing
• developing more accessible, targeted support and simpler product design
• exploring structural solutions (such as wider risk-pooling or schemes similar to Flood Re).

The groups highlighted here as being less likely to have general insurance products are similar to the groups highlighted by the FCA as disproportionately unprotected by pure protection productsOpens in a new window.

It’s likely that there are the same types of barriers to purchasing pure protection insurance as there are for general insurance.  

As part of MaPS action to prompt people to think about protection at key moments, we will consider the above recommendations as part of the design of these prompts and nudges. 

• MoneyView 2026
• The financial wellbeing evidence hub