The names of Bright Grey and Scottish Provident will soon vanish as they adopt the Royal London moniker. Jennifer Gilchrist explains how providing quality customer service will remain the company's sole aim
By weaving together the experience of a 178-year-old company, the energy of a young brand and the strength of the UK's largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, we are confident this marriage of our two protection brands will work. It's a fantastic opportunity to improve every aspect of the way we do business.
To achieve this, we are building on the parts of our proposition that advisers and clients have told us they valued most. By combining the strengths of Bright Grey and Scottish Provident, we have come up with the ‘best of both' to make sure that advisers and their clients can still get the benefits they say are important to them.
For example, we are rolling out our Helping Hand support service, once previously available only to Bright Grey policy holders. We will continue to focus enhancements to our definitions on the most common reasons for claims to give people cover where it counts, rather than expanding the list of illnesses. We hope that the enhancements mean we will be able to pay even more claims in the future.
Although our names may be changing, I feel it is the quality of our service and our products that are a measure of our strength, not what colour our logo is
We also developed Royal London's unemployment cover based on Scottish Provident's, but with wider customer appeal. And we will launch a new, improved whole-of-life product in 2016.
Our income protection cover has had a makeover to better meet today's adviser and customer needs.
We have also greatly improved our online service that will make the process of applying for protection products quicker and simpler, saving advisers' time and money.
Simplicity is best
As an industry, we have often been accused of talking in a language that customers don't understand and using too much jargon.
Add to the mix that the Financial Conduct Authority and consumer groups have been vocal in urging financial firms to review their approach to the way they deal with vulnerable consumers, there has never been a more important time to address our communications and the way we speak to our customers.
We felt it was time to change that and show we can talk to our customers about complex legal or technical issues in a straightforward way. Just because the information may be technical, we don't have to make it complex. We have done our best to ditch the unnecessary jargon in our new suite of protection literature, and adopted the Bright Grey approach of producing communications that are simple and easy to understand.
That way, we hope to make steps in the right direction to bring trust and confidence back to our industry. After all, if people misunderstand financial terms and conditions or simply don't read them at all, it means there is a risk they won't have the information they need to make the right decisions.
We will continue to refine and grow our protection offerings, so post-rebrand, whether they were Bright Grey supporters or Scottish Provident supporters, we hope that advisers like what we have come up with and will continue to recommend us with confidence.
But while our names and branding may change to Royal London, our vision for protection remains the same: to give advisers a flexible proposition that is easy to recommend, as well as giving advisers and consumers the right cover at the right price with the right experience.
Focusing our efforts under one brand will make us stronger because we will be able to use our expertise and resources more effectively. We are committed to the intermediary market - that won't change.
We will continue to invest in building awareness of the Royal London brand. As a mutual, we are owned by our members. That means we do not have to answer to shareholders, and we can concentrate entirely on delivering products and services that best meet the needs of our customers.
On 30 November 2015, the magenta-clad whippersnapper Bright Grey turned purple and rebranded to Royal London.
The same will soon happen to its proud, elderly sister Scottish Provident. While both brands had their ups and downs over the years, they can exit the protection stage with their heads held high.
Right up until the week before we rebranded, Bright Grey achieved a five-star service award as voted by advisers.
So as we complete the rebrand journey, although our names may be changing, I feel it is the quality of our service and our products that are a measure of our strength, not what colour our logo is.
Jennifer Gilchrist is proposition lead (design) at Royal London
Further reading
Bright Grey completes rebrand to Royal London
