This is the last post covering the fantastic conversation from our February Protection Forum. In this section, our attendees discussed how different methods of communication can support adviser involvement and client engagement.
Advisers aren’t medical experts and people often don’t understand what will or won’t get a pay-out, and it’s just so complicated.
Keeping the adviser involved is definitely a priority for us, because clients don’t always make good decisions for themselves.
Phil Briars:
I mentioned it earlier, but I’d send you over, Chantel, if you haven’t seen it, the little interactive PDF that we use for critical illness conditions. Because, it certainly helps me know what they are and what bit of the body it affects. I just want to come back to Lee’s point and actually Ian’s point there, and it’s a really good one that we have and always are looking at technology and how we can give customers easier access to their information.
And I don’t think again, LV= are the best at the technology side of things, but we’re certainly getting there. But we do worry and it is a big consideration in cutting out the adviser. There’s a massive value in advice and we’ve obviously talked about it earlier in customers understanding what they’ve got in terms of income protection. And it’s something we keep bouncing around internally to say, “yeah, we can give them all this information and we can make it really easy for them to look at what they’ve got. But we don’t necessarily think that they’re the best person to make the changes and understand what they’ve got.”
And it really is about getting the adviser somehow, and we don’t know, we haven’t solved it, getting to make sure they go back to their adviser and getting the information that they need and talking it through with someone like that. Because people can make bad decisions. We’ve talked about it already. They’re not always financially astute, they’re not in the industry and they’ll just see something and go, “I don’t think it’ll do that or it won’t do this” and then come to us directly to try and make a change.
And wherever possible, we should be directing them back to advice because we don’t want them making a real howler and doing something and making it really difficult for them to make a claim. So I just wanted to pick up that point that apps are great. We’re looking at all that sort of technology. But you’re right, Ian. We definitely need to keep the adviser in the loop on what that customer is intending to do. So they don’t do anything that they shouldn’t, really.
Consumers may be willing to pay more for a product from a company that aligns with their own values. This includes sustainability, which goes far beyond paper.
We’ve created a sustainability report that shows what insurers can and are doing. And we have to keep in mind that not all customers can access digital formats, so paper will always be necessary to some degree.
Peter Hamilton:
And it was just really a reflection on Ian’s point just now about sustainability, carbon footprint, and so on. So I do think it’s really important. I think if you look at the wealth industry, they spend a lot of their time looking at ESG. I don’t think it’s really into the conversation materially yet so far and protection, but it should, and I think it will.
There was some research that Hyman’s did about three weeks back. I don’t know whether people saw it, but one of the sections within that was just reflecting on the extent to which consumers may be able to pay more for a product that came from a company which aligned with their own values, not least in terms of sustainability. So some kind of measures, I think, will be important.
I guess the one point I would make is, and I don’t know that you are necessarily suggesting this Ian, it ought not just be paper. I mean, clearly there’s a huge range of aspects to the sustainability credentials of whether it’s an insurer or indeed anybody else.
I think you were saying no one publishes that. I mean, I will just put in the chat. It runs to 70 pages. It’s not a video yet. Maybe we’d need to turn it into a video, but we never print it. But what it is just a sustainability report that shows the kind of things that insurers can and are doing. So I think we are alert to it and I think raising this as an issue within the protection world so that you can start to see. And it’s not just about planting trees, although that’s positive and that’s good if done in the right way.
But I think there are a whole range of things that we should be doing. And just finding on paper, the points made are really valid in terms of moving towards digital. But we ought not to lose sight of the fact that there will be some customers out there, some vulnerable, who will just not be able to easily access digital formats. They will want bits of paper and we need to keep that choice open. From a cost point of view, wouldn’t it be great if we just got rid of all paper? But I think we look at vulnerable customers, we just need to be alert to that. And I think everyone would kind of recognise that.
We of course have to keep paper for vulnerable customers and should also be looking at making paper documents more visually readable. We’re trying to assess what organisations are doing in a positive and constructive way.
Ian McKenna:
I 100 percent agree with you on vulnerable customers. We absolutely have to continue, even though there are clearly savings if you can turn off paper. We can’t get away for paper for those that need it. I think we maybe need to look more at things like font sizes and large copies of things, but things like that.
With this particular exercise, we are working with some specialist people who’ve done research on, what’s the cost of putting an A4 envelope in the post box, the cost of putting an A3 envelope in the post box, the cost of different types of envelope. These guys have really gone into it and a lot of detail, and we think it’s a very valid measure to be able to… Significantly, actually, I think it’s part of appealing to consumers and I think particularly encouraging them, let’s face it, we would all be a lot better off if we could take so much of the paper out of the process.
So we genuinely are trying to do this in a very positive and constructive way, and we want to be able to applaud those organisations that have done the most, if you send me the link, I look forward to having a look at it.
Peter Hamilton: The link is in the next in the chat. One thought on that, one of the things we do is send out statements today and in time we’ll digitise all of those statements. But of course, if you simply looked at one company that doesn’t offer [statements], versus say, one that does, in terms of mail footprint will come up badly. But I think it’s a good point.
Ian McKenna: It’s not the only criteria, but these things will come together.
A great way to keep the adviser in the loop is letting them know you’ve sent the video or summary to the client and asking them to pick up with the client.
Angela Davidson:
This links in with what Peter is saying and about sustainability and regular statements going out to people. If they had a choice of receiving an update on a video. And I know they’ve got to have the document as well, but people who are hard of hearing, for instance, it could be that they get a talking summary, obviously not too elongated, but a nice talking summary or a video of ‘these are the benefits.’ I think that would be really good.
But going back to what Phil said, that we’ve got to keep the adviser in the loop, I think that’s the perfect way… Email to the adviser that ‘we’ve just sent your client their video that they’ve requested on a yearly basis to give them a summary or their talking summary or their written one, whichever they’ve decided. Please, can you pick up with them.’ It just makes it work hand in hand together, and that’s what we need to do to keep people’s policies on risk and them to be protected when they really need it and know what they’re protected for. Which touches on, people not realising that they’ve got cover in place because they do forget when it’s just spoken in a meeting.
Rob Harvey: There’s a very important issue to be discussed around the way insurers communicate with clients around medical disclosures, underwriting terms, and underwriting decisions and the language that is used.
