The insurance sector is on the up, with more than half of the advisers in this year's CoreData Risk Study expected to increase the amount of risk they write with their main provider.

According to the study, which surveyed more than 800 advisers, 51.4 per cent of respondents expected to increase business levels with their main risk provider, with 20.8 per cent expecting to boost activity by more than 20 per cent.

CommInsure and Zurich are the biggest winners from the survey, with one third of advisers who use these insurers expecting to increase their level of business by 20 per cent in the next year.

One in five writers to Asteron, Aviva, MLC and Tower expected to boost their business quantities with these firms by 20 per cent.

"In these uncertain times attention has become more heavily skewed towards protection rather than growing assets - leading to a mini-boom in the insurance industry," CoreData partner Craig Phillips said.

According to Phillips, one the key drivers of growth in the personal insurance space at present are the enhancements in the electronic application space.

"The past year has seen a deluge of activity in the e-application space. A series of new products were introduced into the market, while others were upgraded and relaunched," Phillips said.

Insurance also remained an attractive income stream for advisers, as investing becomes less attractive and clients begin to demand greater insurance in uncertain times, according to Phillips.