The Only Hope for Protection Market Growth is the “Social” Financial Adviser

Protection continues to struggle. According to Swiss Re’s Term and Health Watch report 2014, term insurance sales are down 17.4% year on year, critical illness cover is down 21% and income protection is down 24%.

We’ve talked for years about what we can do to make protection grow. Is it generic TV advertising? Or simpler products?

Whilst some companies are dabbling with new direct to consumer approaches, providers to the adviser sector seem content to add complexity to existing products to keep their slice of a shrinking cake.

I think it is up to the financial adviser to stimulate protection market growth – and I’m speaking about this at the Financial Liverpool May event.

Protection Market Growth

Here’s an outline of what I’m going to cover.

Protection is the cornerstone of anyone’s financial existence. And yet the market remains flat and consumers remain indifferent.

Providers are locked in a price and conditions war that layers more complexity onto products and processes. Complexity requires advice but complexity doesn’t engage clients or grow markets.

I believe that the only way we can grow the market now is through advisers using social media and content to find more customers. The “Social” Financial adviser is now key to future success.

In this presentation we’ll consider:

  • The current state of the protection market and its products. There’s no going back from complexity, but how can we better help clients understand what’s available

  • Will complexity in the adviser market drive clients to buy direct? Many providers seem to think that D2C is the way forward for protection. Is this true?

  • How can advisers grow the market using social media and content? For most consumers financial services are of no interest until suddenly it is the most important thing on their minds. How can we be there when it “gets urgent”?

To find out more about the event please click here.

If you can’t make it – I’ll post my script as another post in June.

Now it’s your turn: What do you think about growth in the protection market? Do we need TV advertising? Will more D2C products increase awareness and encourage more people to seek financial advice? Is the only hope for protection market growth the “Social” Financial Adviser?

Please leave a comment or a link to your own blog or article.

Avoiding Airline Check In Queues and Speeding Up Protection

Why does everything seem so complicated these days?

Especially with so much online technology which should speed up processes and make customer experiences better.

I asked this question in my latest Blog for Financial Reporter with specific reference to the time it can take to process a piece of protection business. In the article I draw a tangent to my trick for avoiding airline check in queues. Check it out. It’s guaranteed to mean you’ll never have to queue at check in again.

Click on the photo below to link to the article.

Speeding Up Protection

Now it’s your turn: What cheeses you off about complex modern processes? What would you like to see technology change? What can we do to go about speeding up protection? Do you think protection sales would benefit from a much quicker application process? And what “premium” could we charge for that?

Listen! Have you heard what people are saying about Life Insurance?

It’s one of the fundamental keystones of marketing.

Companies need to listen to their customers to understand what they want from their products and services.

Big corporates can afford to do qualitative and quantitative research, including focus groups, to tease from customers their likes and dislikes. They ‘ll employ insight analysts who can spot the trends that lead to opportunities for product developments or service improvements.

For smaller businesses insight comes from one to one meetings, phone calls and possibly a post-sale questionnaire, and genuinely knowing their client base intimately.

But for everyone, in any industry, there is another way to hear what people are saying.

We all have access to social media and this is where our customers shout loudest. This is where they will unload their thoughts without mincing their words. They’ll be candid, critical, and scathing.  But often they’ll be constructive, complimentary and supportive. And we can learn so much from what they are saying.

It’s like being in the pub with a million people.

Just try going on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ and type in a financial services or a protection term – and stick a “hashtag” in front of it. For example, #LifeInsurance.

You’ll certainly see results where some companies advertise their products. But you’ll also see what people actually think about life insurance. Happily, there are many who realise that they should have some but they haven’t got round to doing anything about it yet. This proves some people want it, albeit grudgingly.

Others have already decided they need it. One great Facebook post said:

life insurance

Then, of course, there are those who are not fans. Some think that it is too expensive, that life insurance companies will try to weasel out of paying claims or that it is just too complicated to apply for.

None of these objections will be new to anyone who works in the protection industry, but it does show how word of mouth, or is that word of screens, can perpetuate perceptions.

I came across a tweet recently which described life insurance as follows:

“A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die rich”

Again here is someone who thinks that life insurance is expensive. But is £20 to £30 a month for a couple of hundred grand’s worth of cover really going to bankrupt someone? They probably have gym membership of around £80, a SkyTV subscription of around £60, a mobile phone contract for £50 and many other outgoings.

Of course, the person is correct that he can’t benefit from the payout. But his family can and will if he dies. They will be the ones left having to find the money to pay all those monthly bills mentioned above and more.

Listening to all this deafening noise in the social sphere tells us what content we need to produce to over come these objections and perceptions. The more positive content (marketing material, blogs, videos, podcasts, case studies) the industry puts out the more chance that it will also be heard.

And perhaps the next big innovation will come, not from an insight in a focus group, but from a comment on a blog, Facebook or other social media platform.

Now it’s your turn: What have you heard about life insurance from the social sphere? What are the best one liners? What are the worst perceptions that we need to address? Please share your thoughts and links.