Biba 2026: The Insurance Charity sees 20% uplift in enquiries year-on-year

The Insurance Charity has seen a 20% year-on-year increase in enquiries for support from across the industry, chief executive Helen Sanson revealed.

Speaking exclusively to Insurance Times in Manchester during this year’s Biba Conference, Sanson said that the uplift in enquiries signified success for the non profit organisation’s “awareness raising work”.

With history rooting back to 1902, The Insurance Charity is run by a team of nine, including Sanson, who has been at the helm since March 2025.

Sanson joined the non profit following a 12-year stint as director at careers and education charity The Switch, where she learned “how committed insurance as a profession was to giving back to society”.

She jumped at the opportunity to join The Insurance Charity when it arrived and the rise in enquiries for support from the charity, she explained, shows momentum towards her “big vision” that its offering will one day be in “every induction document to new employees” in the industry.

She said: “We just want more employers to help spread the word – to tell their staff about us.

“We can do it one employer at a time. Some already have us on their intranets and employee assistance pages, so there’s already some great people out there who are already willing to do that for us.

“We now need to make it so everyone does that. It would be great if everyone who entered the profession learned about us because we support people even after they’ve retired, you don’t have to be currently in the profession to access our help.”

Diversifying support

With Insurance Charity Awareness Week taking place from 22 to 26 June 2026, Sanson noted that the charity is preparing to launch its new strategy.

Sanson explained the strategy launch will coincide with a “push to promote” new programmes, including one designed to support families with children under 18.

She said: “We’re looking to diversify the help that we give.

“We will still do financial as our main source of support, but through partnerships with external services and other charities, we can make sure that individuals are getting the expertise and support they need for a particular issue that may not be financial.”

For example, she explained that the charity is seeing increasing numbers of people struggling with mental health issues or finding it difficult to maintain work due to neurodiversity.

The charity is currently piloting two such partnerships, she explained, with one providing financial wellbeing counselling and advice for people in severe financial difficulty.

Meanwhile, the other partnership supports unemployed people with career guidance, CV help and interview coaching.

She added that the charity is also exploring a range of non-means-tested grants, given without checking the applicant’s income or financial situation.

This is designed to provide quicker, more targeted support for people facing specific challenges.

“We need to do a big piece about reassuring people there’s nothing wrong with having support from your benevolent society, your charity,” she concluded.

“We’re there for everyone in the industry, but a lot of people struggle with asking for help – and the question is how we normalise that. If your house got burgled, you wouldn’t hesitate to claim on your insurance. But why don’t you claim on us if you’re having a really difficult time?

“It’s about how do we make people feel entitled to the help.”