Expert insight, analysis and commentary across the entire protection industry.
by ProtectionReview 06/11/13
I’m delighted to hear news from Mr Le Beau of an imminent initiative in offering Income Protection to lower-income families, and I hope it will be a great success. If it is, it will do something to improve one of the oddest and most unsatisfactory aspects of today’s financial services market: the fact that there are currently no clear and widely-accepted ideas about how the mass market can successfully be served. This is certainly true in individual protection. These days there’s fairly general agreement that face-to-face is too expensive, but remote execution-only doesn’t work (“Remember, life assurance is sold and…
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by ProtectionReview 06/11/13
A number of multi-national organisations we have been speaking with recently have intensified focus on their customers and have instigated several customer-centric initiatives to put the customer front and centre in everything they do. It seems a pretty obvious and fundamental thing to do but sometimes we lose sight of what impact an activity or initiative in a large organisation might have on our customers. We are all aware, being customers ourselves, that (due to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on) our expectations have shifted in how we deal with service organisations. We want ready access through multiple channels…
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by ProtectionReview 29/10/13
The death of the standard annuity has been predicted many times. As advisers and consumers seek alternatives to maximise their retirement earnings, low interest rates and the removal of gender as a pricing tool may turn out to be another couple of nails in the coffin. It is difficult to argue against the decline and the fact that sales of enhanced products have exceeded 50% market share of new business for the last two years shows that the simple annuity is not what it once was. However, the enhanced market also faces challenges. Until now, the enhanced annuity market has…
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by ProtectionReview 22/10/13
BD + BE – EQ = Not Much Progress There can be little doubt that two Big Topics have recently found their way on to the business agenda, and not just in the insurance sector: Big Data and Behavioural Economics. But if we persist in being a low-EQ sector, the benefits from these new developments, to our businesses and to our customers, will fail to materialise. At conferences, seminars and networking events in the last 18 months or so I have seen presentations on Big Data and on Behavioural Economics and I have heard how each or both will improve…
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by ProtectionReview 07/10/13
Today I am thinking about perception. Why do so many of us perceive that we are immune from catastrophe? What is ‘catastrophe’? How do you make a risk assessment? I perceive a catastrophe as being loss of life, loss of health, loss of home or loss of income. Others may have a different perception. The insurance policies that are compulsory in the UK are motor insurance (if you drive) and employers’ liability (if you are an employer). We buy buildings insurance and life insurance when our mortgage lender insists. We are frequently told that we under insure our house contents…
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