In March, BT decided to cancel the project. BT chief executive, Rob Coombe, said: “We must ensure that our customers are fully aware of and understand any offer being made to them and that they consciously accept any change to their insurance profile.” Jeffrey of Watson Wyatt says there will always be mixed responses to funds assuming the responsibility of adequately insuring members. “Some will say, ‘hey thanks for doing that and looking after me’, while others will say ‘hey you’ve gone behind my back’,” he says.

Jeffrey says insurance could be made more popular through the better use of age-based defaults, designing them to more accurately reflect demographics following a positively skewed curve that peaks at around 30 years of age, rather than the sliding linear scale that some funds have in place, which arguably can overinsure some younger members. But some young people do have dependents, a mortgage and other liabilities, he says. “Default options are always an imperfect compromise. There’s a fine line between under, adequate and over insured,” Jeffrey says.