Roger Edwards wonders when the protection industry will have its 'Dyson' moment.
I recently had to go through one of those psychometric tests where they take some theories about human nature linked to 200 questions, all cross-referenced, giving an insight into your character using a series of letters like, INXS, or a colour coded mood chart.
The test I took was all about revealing personal strengths. I discovered that one of my strengths is allegedly "ideation". A fancy non-word for "is good at coming up with ideas".
Whilst it is natural to be a little cynical about these tests, I agreed with some of the findings. I do like coming up with ideas.
Brainstorming is good and I love sticking loads of post-it notes on flip charts. Many of my ideas are pretty silly. Some have my actuarial colleagues shuffling me towards the coat stand.
One idea I had a long time ago in Burger King led to the development of the current menu protection product - but that's another story.
I also like to see how good ideas shape other industries and to see if we in the protection industry can learn anything as a consequence. Some people laughed at the idea of a vacuum cleaner without a bag. But Mr Dyson stuck with his idea and made it work.
The other day I came across a music website which allows you to select what music you want to listen to based upon your mood. Rather than choose tracks you select whether you feel dark, sad, happy etc, and it picks the tracks based on that. It's surprising what they play.
Then there are some ideas that seem plain silly. On British Airways economy flights they give you a plastic waste bag to put your rubbish in after the sandwich lunch service.
What's silly about that? The plastic waste bag comes in its own plastic wrapper. Once unwrapped the wrapper immediately becomes waste itself and ends up inside the bag that it was inside first.
We've seen great ideas in the protection market. Was the menu product our Dyson? Well it was certainly different at the time but the component parts of the menu were the same as the original individual products.
What would the protection industry's Dyson look like? What would "different" in the protection market be? Alas it may be difficult to find out because different doesn't sell in enough volumes over the short term. And if you can't build a business case around short term success then "different" probably won't make it onto the development schedule. It leads to us continually doing the same things and expecting different results.
I wish we could start experimenting more and innovating. How often do we take time out to brainstorm ideas about every aspect of the customer proposition and experience? And then how often do we take those ideas and nurture them, test them, filter them and develop them into something that makes a difference?
It's about time that we saw interesting new ideas in the protection market. More than adding new illnesses to a critical illness plan, or shuffling questions around our underwriting process. And let's not restrict ideas and innovation to products.
What about an application no bigger than one iPad screen? What about a video policy with an interactive questions and answers function rather than the old fashioned booklet?
What about underwriting without GPRs? What about critical illness cover without definitions? What about income protection without underwriting at the start and at claim? Oh dear I can feel the actuaries shuffling me towards the coat stand again!
Roger Edwards works through Roger Edwards Marketing as a marketing strategist and speaker
