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5 QI

Johnny Timpson, Scottish Widows

 

1. What has been the best moment of your career to date? 

There are a few -

* every 27 mins of every business day  when my claims team make a difference to a customer and/or their family by paying a claim.

* when we became the largest manufacturer and distributor of Ci cover in the UK

* aiding Dr Barnard treat a chap who had suffered a heart attack whilst on a train to Aberdeen to present at a Sesame Protection workshop, brought a new perspective to our Ci presentation.

* being mentioned in Marius Barnard's autobiography. 

 

2. What was the first car/book/record you ever bought? 

Bike -  Yamaha FS1E, metallic candy red with white 1/4 fairing

Car - A metallic silver Ford Cortina, Mk2 1300 De-lux, G Reg

Book - Dickens, " A tail of two cities"

Single - Telegram Sam - T. Rex

Album - Ziggy Stardust - Bowie

 

3. Who or what has been the greatest inspiration on your career so far? 

Dr Marius Barnard, first read about him when Financial Adviser first launched, met him at a LIA conference in ' 91 and today very proud to count him as a member of my family, working with him still as I write this e mail.

4. What is your favourite movie or TV show? (and why) 

Movie - Python - Life Of Brian, 1979.

Produced by Handmade films and funded largely by George Harrison as the "establishment"  pulled out the stops to ban it, the Python team challenged the way things are.

5. If you could change one thing about the industry overnight what would it be? 

Taking a Python approach and challenging your question- 7 things.

1 -Consumers in this, the 21st centaury are being served with products largely governed by legislation from the 1780's, in fairness the current Consume Insurance Bill will go some way to rectifying this, BUT, if I had a wish - it is to move to a contractual basis of establishing death benefits. The customer would express a wish of whom he/ she wanted claims benefits paid too and in what proportion - this makes for easy claims process, no need for trust forms, probate etc. ( I and others have pushed for this but at this point, unable to get it up the Law Commission's priority list)

2- Have employers clearly and on a annual basis confirmtheir  HR policy in relation to long term sickness and disability to employees plus confirm occupation benefits available both before and at retirement.

3 - Adopt a 5 yrs non- contestability basis to dealing with claims

4 - Scrap GIO's, they are the refuge of the adviser who does not regularly review his customers.

5- Ban all protection industry awards until such time as we protect more folks that we did in the mid 90's, I'm amazed at the endless and increasing raft of awards and award dinners, we actually are protection fewer people than we used too.

6 - Scrap ABI +, if this is what rocks your boat, look in the mirror and ask yourself - " have I fully addressed my customers IP needs before recommending these bells and whistles".

7 - As part of the Government's Welfare Reform agenda, ring fence the value of private IP provision made by customers and exclude completely ( or at least improve)from any means tested assessment made by the DWP should the customer apply for means tested benefit. I would like the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith to change his mantra slightly...make returning to  work pay, make taking out IP pay.

Poll Results

In our last poll we asked " Given all coverage is good, given the choice would you rather have less "on-message" press coverage or more "off-message" coverage?".  The results were fairly evenly split with off-message coverage just having the edge.

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