LONDON (Reuters) - Life insurer Friends Provident (FP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday 9-month sales rose 31 percent, towards the low end of expectations, and said it saw little improvement in the market for insurance on home loans, a key product area.

"We see little improvement in the mortgage market but would expect many of our new protection focussed distribution deals to have a positive impact through 2006," Friends' head of life and pensions, Ben Gunn, said in a statement.

Rounding off the life insurers' sales season, Friends Provident said revenues in the first 9 months of the year were 425 million pounds compared with 323 million pounds in the same period last year.

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