Bright Grey and Scottish Provident held a recent summit on the future of critical illness cover. Roger Edwards outlines its conclusions
Despite improvements since the ABI came up with detailed headings, it was still difficult for consumers to understand why their claim was not paid.
She also mentioned there had been a 12% decline in the number of complaints about CI cover.
However, this could have been due to a fall in the number of policies in force. Complaints around non-disclosure had fallen since the introduction of the ABI code. Total permanent disability drew the highest number of complaints.
Kirwan pointed out that the Retail Distribution Review could lead to a rise in protection sales as more advisers move into the area.
He felt that the Review was potentially an opportunity to increase protection sales as protection will continue to pay commission.
The audience were divided about whether the embrace of wealth management would see advisers move away from protection or actually see some increase their focus.
A large part of our debate focused on how to boost the media coverage and marketing – a major challenge facing the industry today.
It was felt that while big advertising campaigns, including recent TV promotion, will definitely help, there are also more cost-effective ways to boost consumers’ awareness of protection products.
Prestridge urged the ABI to move ahead with plans for a protection website and encouraged the industry to work on producing case studies that could be used in his paper and others.
Getting the message across
I made the point that I would genuinely like to see enough consumer engagement marketing – either by TV advertising or social media – to raise awareness of both CI and income protection.
We need to do more promotion, but we do not all need to make TV ads. Social media and using video is a cost-effective way to get the message out to the public.
So, it is no great surprise that there are challenges facing the industry but there are also huge opportunities.
We might have a long way to go before we see a massive boost in the appeal of CI. But in the meantime, we must keep discussing the issues and work together as an industry.
As a result, we might change the public’s perception and see an increase in sales across the UK.
Following the summit, we produced a White Paper detailing how the industry can improve its critical illness offering, based on the suggestions made by the panel. This is available at www.uncovered-uk.com
Roger Edwards is proposition director at Bright Grey and Scottish Provident
