Justin Taurog, PruProtect's distribution and marketing director, discusses Vitality, customer health and the adviser market with Paul Robertson.
“This is the big thing for us: to have innovative products that are differentiated in the market because we are only distributing through intermediaries, giving intermediaries products that can expand what they are selling.
“If you just had products that are cheaper than somebody else’s, you will always find someone undercutting you.” Of course, with about 9% of the adviser protection market, a pessimist might argue that PruProtect’s complexity was a barrier to sales. Busy advisers have little time to spend explaining policies to clients. In short, is complexity a hindrance?
“It may have been in the early days, and that was probably why it took us a while to get traction,” is Taurog’s surprising conclusion. “An adviser needs to take time and needs to understand the product. There is an initial investment. We recognise this. It might seem almost old fashioned, but it is why we have the biggest adviser support team in the market.”
Substantial lead
On this point, you really have to say ‘hats off’ to PruProtect. With 150 people in the field, it has a substantial lead over the competition. Taurog estimates this figure is larger than all the insurer’s competition combined, and blames the sustained cut in protection prices partially on a cutback on marketing and support to intermediaries.
Taurog adds: “Just on that point, part of the reason we think the protection gap has shrunk is because of the way products have become much more transactional. If you can support brokers to give them new ways to sell, new products, new ideas, you are not just taking a share of someone else’s pie but making your own.”
Taking this at face value, it would be hard to disagree. But in recent years it has become the norm for IFAs to be members of networks. Networks have panels, so surely that has got to be the most important route to the IFA for PruProtect? How does the policy of difference apply there?
The provider claims to have joined most of the major network’s panels over the past 18 months. Taurog says: “A number of the banks have gone on panel in the past six months and it is because our product is differentiated. It gives them something different and because PruProtect has now become a mainstream provider. We are probably the fifth-largest in the market.”
Essentially, the argument is what some people would perceive as a barrier to getting on panels – being a bit different – is actually now a positive. This all begs the question: why is no one else doing Vitality?
