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by Protection Review 09/12/20

Well, the Protection Review Conference and Awards was certainly different this year. We hope you enjoyed our online event and will join us in congratulating this year's winners.

Whilst we can't now adjourn to the bar, let's all raise a glass, sometime over the next 24 hours, to all the winners and to everyone else in the protection industry. 

We've set out the winners below and also given you some detail about why they won.

Best New Product in association with Iress

• Winner: Scottish Widows 
• Highly Commended: Legal & General

Reason for winner: It has been a tough year from product development given the context of Covid-19. Protection Review has long held the view that CI is too complicated and therefore views the work of Scottish Widows as a positive development would like to see more work in this area. They are also to be commended for their work with the charity sector and their partnership with MacMillan.

Underwriting and Claims Award in association with Hannover Re UK Life Branch

• Winner: AIG Life
• Highly Commended: Zurich

Reason for winner: As well as winning the adviser vote, AIG Life demonstrated real agility in their response to Covid-19 adapting to home working and also ensuring that underwriters were available to support distributors until 8 pm every night. Adapting underwriting practices swiftly, and supporting this by removing barriers to pay claims, AIG Life were focused on being flexible and maintaining access to insurance for customers.

Individual Protection Adviser of the Year in association with Scottish Widows

• Winner: Alan Knowles, Cura
• Highly Commended: Jiten Virsani, London Money

Reason for winner: Alan is more than the sum of just his parts. He demonstrates a commitment to being an excellent adviser and should be recognised for his work on access to insurance and signposting and his active participation in industry groups such as the PDG and IPTF. Always looking for ways that the industry can continually improve, he has shown and interest in financial education in schools and works selflessly for the greater good of protection insurance alongside running a successful business.

Protection Intermediary of the Year in association with Vitality

• Winner: Cura
• Highly Commended: Drewberry

Reason for winner: Judges were impressed by the non-indemnity model of this intermediary and their impressive persistency ratios but more than this, the judges felt that the winner was contributing positively to move the industry forward working tirelessly in the area of signposting. On top of this, they are a successful specialist broker leading the way in their field.

Innovation Award in association with Gen Re

• Winner: DeadHappy

Reason for winner: This award is not about tweaking an existing product; if you’re amending something that wasn’t right in the first place, that’s not innovation. We wanted to recognise something that was truly different. The winner has shown true innovation in their marketing and has definitely disrupted the way that we think about life insurance products. We hope their product contributes towards growth in the market and are happy to recognise their unique message.

Best Care and Support Experience in association with Protection Guru

• Winner: Teladoc Health
• Highly Commended: Health Claims Bureau, Square Health

Reason for winner: A really strong entry all round which highlighted the fact that there are a range of different services accessible from one location with both preventative and curative options available. A satisfaction score of 97% is a really strong evidence of its worth as is the fact that there are no limits to use. In addition, the judges were impressed not just with the offer but also with the promotion of the initiative which has been comprehensive.

Young Achiever Award in association with Zurich

• Winner: Camilla Hoskisson, AIG Life
• Highly Commended: Joe D’Cunha, Neilson

Reason for winner: The judges recognise the excellent job Camilla did in promoting SmartHealth as well as the consistently high standard of communications produced by this individual during Covid-19. She included some impressive data on successes achieved and as well as providing evidence of her management skills, included strong industry endorsement.

Health Insurance Adviser Award in association with Vitality

• Winner: Assured Futures

Reason for winner: For a third successive year, Assured Futures demonstrated a commitment to growing the PMI market and providing excellent customer service drawing on their 50 years of experience. Among many accomplishments, this company has developed an in-house comparison system and can also be proud of their high retention rate.

Doing it Better Award in association with The Exeter

• Winner: National Friendly
• Highly Commended: iPipeline, Zurich

Reason for winner: National Friendly provided evidence of genuine community initiatives aimed at making a difference to their local community in a tangible way. Judges were particularly impressed with the Matinee Mingles initiative and recognised the very real impact this had to tackle loneliness in the local community. The entry included numerous meaningful initiatives motivated by a genuine desire to make a difference to the local community and to embed a principle of helping out in the company culture.

Unsung Hero Award in association with LifeSearch

• Winner: Steve Fallon, Legal & General
• Highly Commended: Victoria Thirlwell, Cura

Reason for winner: As well as leading the popular vote, they provided evidence of an agile response in Covid-19 including involvement in product development. Steve, our Unsung Hero also received strong endorsement from the industry.

Organisation of the Year

• Winner: iPipeline

Reason for winner: The judges recognised iPipeline's commitment to the overall development of the protection industry and their involvement in a wide number of initiatives which contribute to the advancement of protection even if not directly related to their business. As well as an enlightened approach to the development of the industry, they stepped up to provide support and insight during Covid-19. A frontrunner in a number of categories this year and in previous years, iPipeline champions strong female representation, makes supporting charities part of their company culture and is committed to making their organisation a great place to work as well as making the industry a force for positive change.

Protection Journalist of the Year in association with AIG Life

• Winner: Adam Saville, Cover Magazine

Reason for winner: Adam has played a pivotal role in driving the industry forward and highlighted the important work that has happened, and still needs to happen, in the areas of mental health, workplace initiatives and signposting. He shows a clear personal interest and dedication in moving the industry forward and continually helps frame the industry response to important issues. Adam gained the largest share of the popular vote this year once again and our judges had to agree.

Personality of the Year in association with AMI

• Winner: Alain Desmier

Reason for winner: Alain has successfully highlighted a very real issue for the industry while also developing an AI solution which is focussed on improving the way that the industry works and impacting the customer experience for the better.

Lifetime Achievement Award in association with Legal & General

• Winner: Johnny Timpson

Reasons for winning: Johnny's goals according to LinkedIn include:

• Improving financial protection advocacy, trust and access to advice,
• Simplifying financial protection solutions, making them easy to buy, own and alter as needs change
• Providing appropriate financial protection to consumers, their dependants and businesses
• Improving the financial protection awareness, education and capability of UK advisers and consumers
• Speeding up claims payment and reducing non-disclosure.

A member of IPTF, BRHG, the ABI Protection Committee & Welfare Working Group, Chair of the Access to Insurance working group and also the Cabinet Office Disability & Access Champion for The UK Insurance Industry & Profession, this year’s winner is s stalwart of the protection industry who continually strives for improvement and advancement for all stakeholders.
Representing all that is good about the industry and challenging where there is still work to be done, this year’s very worthy winner is Johnny Timpson from Scottish Widows.