Aviva has unveiled its protection TV advertising campaign. Is this the chink of light that the industry needs to maximise consumer awareness and engagement, and will it prompt further moves by insurers either individually or collectively?
Matt Morris, LifeSearch
LifeSearch has been calling on insurers to use their power to promote our sector and expand into new markets for a long time, and Aviva is now doing it. Aviva's Protection TV advert is great news. Their advert is disturbing yet tasteful. We certainly hope other insurers will follow their lead as it is good for the industry, but also good for consumers - they need to be shaken out of their torpor, although it must be done in an honest and genuine manner, as Aviva have done.
This should be just the start of a more bullish approach to promoting protection though. The cutbacks in the welfare state over the past year make protection insurance, and particularly income protection, more relevant than ever. No doubt the Income Protection Task Force will continue their excellent work in raising the agenda, and hopefully the government will embrace our industry as the solution to their welfare woes in much the same way as private pensions are now acknowledged as being a central part of retirement planning for almost all sectors of the working population.
We have to use all means of promotion at our disposal - TV, PR, social media and more - to ensure the message gets through to consumers. Our products and our advice are crucial to the financial wellbeing of millions of families and individuals. Aviva has taken the lead and now the rest of us must push on and take protection to greater heights. It is important for consumers and it is essential for everyone who works in the protection industry.
Marco Forato, Unum
It is good to see other insurers raising consumer awareness of the need for proper cover, in this example the need for life insurance. As experts in income protection, we also find that consumers do not understand the risk of becoming disabled during their working lives is three times higher than dying.
On average, approximately two million workers currently in employment have had to take off six months or more at some point in their career. Many end up on benefits and soon realise that the state will not provide the standard of living they are used to. People need to understand this and find alternative ways to ensure that they, and their family, are protected if one of the earners is unable to work.
But the issue is not just consumer awareness. Employers too need to understand the role they can play in protecting employees when they are sick - and the value that income protection has to their business as a way to control absence cost and to increase employee morale, engagement and productivity. We think there is an urgent need to educate the UK working population about the risks involved and, as an industry, highlight other ways people can protect themselves.
Later this year, we will also be launching a consumer-facing integrated communications campaign to educate a wider audience on the need for income protection. We hope that the industry will join us in our approach and work together to increase public awareness of the need to seek out alternative means of protecting their income. If we succeed that will be good for the people we cover, their employers and, ultimately, society as a whole.
Peter Le Beau, Le Beau Visage
I had the pleasure of seeing a preview copy of the Aviva advert and I was delighted to see not only a well thought out protection ad with visceral impact, but also a big insurer taking life protection seriously.
‘The Sixth Sense' style ad is likely to grow steadily on people and you have to give enormous credit to Aviva for the psychological insights they have sought to gain into protection. It is the product of some intensive and coherent research and I desperately hope it challenges people who need cover to heed the underlying message.
But will it kick start a revival in protection advertising in the UK? Sadly, I suspect not. I say this for two reasons:
Firstly, most of our protection writers have not got the financial scope to do advertising on this scale. Their budgets are constrained and if you remember the demise of the Consumer Protection Insurance Engagement Campaign (CPIEC) some companies were against it because it would give Aviva a higher share of any resulting spoils because of the size of their existing advertising and direct spend! Parochial or what?
Secondly, and I am being deliberately controversial here, Aviva are one of the very few offices in whom I detect a real passion to convince people about the need for protection. Some players talk a good game but that's all it is. Adverts like Aviva's cost a lot of money and spending lots of money is not only impossible for some companies it would never cross their mind that they could, or should do it.
Chris Hulme, Clayton Hulme Partnership
Paul Whitehouse captures the imagination perfectly in his latest promotion of Aviva insurances.
With an ever complex product choice and permutation of cover, does the latest campaign go far enough to encourage consumers to take advicem or will Aviva peddle its cheap and cheerful life business through web based ‘non advised-no comeback' supermarkets engorged with the mantra "cheaper, cheaper, cheaper"?
Applause must be raised for Aviva though, in highlighting the need for protection that extends beyond simple life cover. While the death rate in the UK remains at 100%, there are still 92% of consumers who have no critical illness cover, yet 25% will need one.
Education of clients to acknowledge that they can only rely on their own provision rather than that of the state or employer is a must and as advisers and providers, we share a joint interest with our clients in such educational material.
The problems humourised by Paul Whitehouse have existed for decades but are compounded now as welfare reform kicks into top gear and employers trim back on sick pay schemes and other benefit choices packages.
This is certainly a chink of light the industry needs to encourage clients to take responsibility for themselves, although providers should consider that the best business that stays on the books is that from good advised sales processes convened by you and me. The sooner intermediary products are priced lower than direct web sales (in line with the propensity to persist) to encourage clients to take advice, the better.
