Is “Financial Rescue” a Better Name than Daft “Protection”?

Protection is a daft name for personal insurances.

I’ve always known that but inertia means we all stick to using it. But maybe it’s about time we did change it to something that means more to our customers.

Financial Rescue

Google “protection” and you won’t find links to financial products like life insurance and critical illness cover on the first few pages.

You’ll find insect repellant, condoms, airbags, and warm clothing. To the man on the street, it’s fairly obvious what these products provide protection against.

  • Insect repellent protects you from getting eaten alive by mosquitos when you go to the Caribbean. Or by midges if you go to Scotland.
  • Condoms protect against unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Airbags protect car drivers and their passengers against injury in an accident.
  • Warm clothes protect you against the cold.

So, following the same logic from those bleeding obvious statements,  it’s easy to work out what protection insurance is for. Isn’t it?

  • Life insurance protects you from dying.
  • Critical illness insurance protects you from getting a critical illness.

Erm…

But of course they don’t, do they?

  • Life insurance protects your family or business against the financial consequences of dying.
  • Critical illness cover protects you, your family or business against the financial consequences of getting a critical illness.

So it’s not immediately obvious what our type of protection does. We need to explain it. And we don’t engage people, as a result.

So what could we call it as an alternative?

I recently took out a week’s trial on a software package called Grammarly. For writers, it checks grammar, spelling and points out when you overdose on passive language. My son was finding English difficult at school and I thought it would help. I forgot about the seven-day deadline and soon had a year’s subscription. I started using it to check my work.

First of all it shouted at me.

I was using the word “protection” too often it screamed.

Helpfully it provided some alternatives. “Security” was its favourite. But “security” is just as inappropriate as “protection”. So no help from Grammarly just a reminder that I overuse a term no one understands.

Then I was listening to Alan Newman speaking at the Protect Association meeting in London on the 16 January.

He suggested we should rename protection as, “Financial Rescue”.

I like that.

Financial Rescue!

Then the geek in me started thinking about International Financial Rescue and I started humming the Thunderbirds theme tune.

Calling International Financial Rescue

In my head, I could already see the TV advert (and the size of the budget I’d need to pay the royalties to Gerry Anderson’s estate).

  • Thunderbird One is life insurance.
  • Thunderbird Two is critical illness cover.
  • And Thunderbird Three is income protection.

Take out a subscription to International Financial Rescue and if you become ill or die they’ll send in the Financial Thunderbirds to sort you or your family out.

Now it’s Your Turn:

Okay International Financial Rescue exposes me as a Sci-Fi Fanboy. But that a better way of describing protection insurance? What do you think? What other alternatives could we use? Please post your ideas as a comment below. Or post a link to your own articles.

Peter Le Beau on the Seven Families Initiative for Income Protection – MPAF10

Spearheaded by the Income Protection Taskforce, The Seven Families Initiative could be the most important campaign in the history of the protection market.

It could raise awareness and increase interest in income protection, long seen in the industry as “the Cinderella product”.

And the stories that will emerge from the initiative could start to heal the industry’s tarnished image with consumers.

My guest on Episode 10 of the Marketing Protection and Finance Podcast is Peter Le Beau.

Peter Le Beau on the Seven Families Initiative

Peter talks us through how the Seven Families Initiative came about and its significance for the protection industry.

Hear how you can benefit from the campaign. Listen to what the campaign involves and what activities we’ll see.

Click here to TWEET this episode.

Who is Peter Le Beau?

Peter is one of the best known consultants in life and health insurance protection. He began his career at British and European and in 1981 moved to Swiss Re where he was initially Head of Underwriting and later became Head of UK Marketing.

He left in 2001 to set up an independent consultancy, Le Beau Visage, which focuses on differentiation in the Protection sector.

Since starting Le Beau Visage, Peter with Andy Couchman and Kevin Carr run The Protection Review. He has set up a strategic discussion group called The-Net-Work and Income Protection Task Force to promote a greater awareness of the value of the product.

Peter is a non-executive director of Fineos, Red Arc, Health Claims Bureau and Exeter Family Friendly.

In 2007 Cover Magazine voted Peter the most influential person in the UK protection industry over the previous 10 years and in 2009 he was voted Health Insurance Magazine’s Personality of the Year.

Peter is a regular contributor protection media publications.

He was awarded the MBE for services to Insurance in June 2009.

He’s is also a fiercely dedicated Arsenal fan.

Peter’s Links:

14 best business books recommended by Financial Services Professionals

Don’t miss an episode of the MPAF Podcast – subscribe now.

Subscribe on iTunes

Subscribe by RSS Feed

Now it’s your turn:

If you enjoyed this episode – Peter Le Beau on the Seven Families Initiative for Income Protection – please leave a comment or a review on iTunes. And if you know anyone who would enjoy the show – please share it with them. You can use the buttons below to share on social media.

What use are great protection claims statistics if no one knows about them?

There have been some great headlines recently shouting about how many protection claims we paid last year.

Here’s one from Money Marketing Magazine.

“Protection industry paid out £3.1bn in 2013”

And another from Financial Adviser magazine.

“ABI: Insurers paid out 97% of protection claims”

Undoubtedly these are great protection claims statistics. As Dougie Grant from Aegon says in the Financial Adviser piece, “The figures released by the ABI today shatter the illusion that insurance companies don’t pay claims and demonstrate how important it is to have cover in place.”

You can’t argue with that.

Protection Claims Statistics

But as great as these figures are it’s like hundreds of trees falling in the forest. You won’t hear them fall unless you are there to see them. The public still think that protection providers actively try to avoid paying claims. In fact they think that we pay out less than 40%. And articles in the Daily Mail and features on BBC Watchdog fuel that perception.

Only a very few people will go looking for great claims statistics like this. Confirmation bias means that they’ll seek out the negative articles that confirm their belief that we don’t pay.

Articles like this are great for an adviser to whip out when a client  raises the question about a companies willingness to pay. But main stream audiences aren’t seeing them.

So what are we doing to promote these amazing claims statistics? Where are the case studies with claimants? Where are the video testimonials from clients? Where are the interviews with people holding their cheques?

Statistics alone will not change deeply rooted perceptions. We need to tell the stories of the people whose lives have been affected.

Or better still let them tell their stories themselves.

Do you agree? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.