Would you be interested in being involved in a body encompassing all intermediaries, providers, re-insurers and bancassurers, solely for promoting the interests of protection insurance?
Tom Baigrie, Lifesearch
Well I have form of course. I led the Consumer Protection Insurance Engagement Campaign (CPIEC) team that united almost all the above for just the purpose in question. But we failed totally to hold together as soon as real money and commitment were required of our coalition members.
And, most threateningly to any new effort, the primary reason for that collapse of unity was the totally unaligned nature of the four groups listed in the question.
They are competitors firstly, and have widely differing routes to market, many of which intentionally conflict. So uniting all groups around one campaign is very unlikely. But that may well be far too simplistic an approach.
A coordination of different messages and fulfillment methods, all happening at a similar time, may well be a more achievable route. So it is well worth trying again and that is what is happening now.
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) - in reality the only body that could achieve this - has started work, with a very impressive and eager team, chaired by the estimable Louise Colley of Aviva.
Our aims are exactly those of the question and as those involved in the ABI effort are very senior in their Bancassurer, Re-Insurer and Provider organisations, it may well be that they have the clout to succeed where my team could not.
But if this one fails too, then the market will have to wait until one brand is prepared to have a go at telling the consumer they need protection and that it is best to do it through them.
Steve Divine, Protect
Yes indeed, I would gladly get involved with such a group. It is a model that Protect have followed for many years, in terms of creditor insurance, and that we will continue to follow in the wider protection markets.
Although I would replace the word ‘interests' with ‘benefits' of protection insurance. Mindful that insurance, no matter how comprehensive, or affordable, will never be the only, or best solution in every circumstance.
I would also encourage the group to engage with other stakeholders, Government Depts, Civil Service, consumer groups, regulators, the media and last but not least, consumers. They so often get forgotten by those working in the protection market. We need to ensure we are providing products that will work and that consumers can trust us to deliver what we promise them.
Left to our own devices, practitioners and regulators have a tendency to over-complicate things.
The current economic situation is so dire it must help provide the stimulus for the private sector to work together with the public sector to deliver an effective safety net for our citizens.
Protection has a key role to play supporting individuals and families in difficult circumstances when their health, lifestyles, and incomes are under threat.
I am prepared to commit my own time and resources to support this group, as I am sure, are the rest of the Protect membership, which already includes many of the different protection market sectors that would make up the group.
Kevin Carr, Protection Review
In a word, yes. Who wouldn't be? From an operational point of view, this already exists to an extent with F&TRC's Protection Forum, which proves the model can work as long as there are shared aims, good governance and funding. However, what the protection industry is really missing is an intermediary trade body along the lines of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) and the Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII). There a number of issues which fall between or beyond groups such as the ABI and Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA), which can be to the detriment of the sector.
The ABI is capable of driving issues forward, especially when working alongside intermediaries and other stakeholders, and this is currently perhaps the best vehicle we have. But many question whether or not the ABI sometimes acts beyond its remit - and more importantly whether or not it is the right body to lead key intermediary issues. Like all trade bodies it represents the interests of its members, which are not intermediaries.
Getting back to the main question above, we would need to be clear on the outcomes, structure and costs of such a body as issues around facilitation and return on investment, including pending changes with solvency II, soon derailed the CPIEC campaign. Many lessons were learned at the time but assuming we all want to grow our market the one point that doesn't change is that what we provide as an industry needs proper consumer marketing, and fast. But we all know the first rule of assumptions.
Nick Kirwan, ABI
Anything we can do to promote the value of protection to the government, regulators and other stakeholders is worth considering.
The idea of creating an industry group representing the interests of all parties on protection is an intriguing proposition.
Having the whole industry speaking out with a single voice on key protection issues has obvious appeal, but may be impossible to achieve in practice.
Speaking out is the easy bit - the hard bit would be reaching a consensus on contentious issues to speak out about.
Any industry body can only represent the views of its membership to the extent that its members agree on the positions it should take on key issues.
The wider and the more diverse the interests of the proposed body's members, the more diverse the views are likely to be. This would inevitably make it harder to agree on a common position on contentious issues.
For example, how easy would it be to develop a common position about how consumers can best access the protection market, or on the value of advice, if the membership were to comprise both distributors who give advice, and distributors who do not?
This is why an industry body that looks to represent the views of all stakeholders might find itself with nothing to say apart from bland comments that achieve very little.
The last thing the industry needs is a talking shop that achieves very little.
