LifeSearch's chief executive Tom Baigrie has urged insurers and reinsurers to continually come back to the question ‘what are you doing to engage the wider protection market?'
Speaking at LifeSearch's annual awards, Baigrie said: "My challenge to you insurers (and reinsurers) and I'd like it to be the cornerstone of every strategic conversation you have with LifeSearch from now on is 'What are you doing to engage consumers and grow the wider protection market?'"
He said: "What we most need to do is work out how protection becomes genuinely relevant to the man in the street once more. I can't help thinking it has something to do with income protection, the policy that leads to more claims not life, which leads to ever fewer.
"How about a really properly sponsored nation-changing 70 Families campaign or a cracking D2C income protection journey both with proper consumer and protection insurance engagement campaigns? Call them CPIECs for short?"
Baigrie also applauded new protection offerings, including those from VitalityLife and British Friendly where product enhancements were applied retrospectively to policyholders.
He urged for insurers to make this "the hygiene factor standard as you update your offerings please."
Speaking of new launches into the market, including Scottish Widows' return to the advised protection market, he said: "It's great to see that iconic brand back in the market for so long and with real ambition. We do need more ambition.
"Since the demise of the tied sales force gave us a boost, the intermediated market has been horribly flat for so too long. And the direct one has been no better."
Further reading
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