Protection insurance may not be understood by many consumers, but it can be brought to life through better advertising and insurers must play their part, according to Toni Smith, distribution director of Sesame Network.
Smith was speaking on a panel at Health & Protection’s Protection Forum alongside Setul Mehta, founder of SM Advice and Zoe Priselac, managing director of Way More.
Smith (pictured right) said: “We have to remember, sadly, although I’m very passionate about it – life insurance is a little bit of a dry subject.
“We have to help the intermediary bring that to life for the customer, and we have to remind them of the consequences of not it and we have to explain that customer journey and customer understanding of why they need it, what they need and how they can get it, and why they should keep it in place.”
Key to that would be a greater effort by insurers to increase their advertising and marketing.
Smith said: “Protecting our customers is one of the most important things we do as an industry, and I would personally like to see some help and support from our insurers in national advertising.
“I would like to see our insurers leaning into that advertising space and helping our advisers and our distribution businesses having those much needed conversations.“
She added: “Lots of advisers do it really well, but they could do it better with the help of that awareness on a national basis.”
Reaching young people
Priselac (pictured centre) agreed and noted that many potential customers in the market just do not understand the product.
“The general consumer certainly doesn’t understand the difference between critical illness and income protection,“ she said.
“That is a question that I get a lot, especially with the younger generation.
“Income protection would actually resonate a lot more if they find out that they can take out an all-term income protection policy and secure their income for working life.”
Mehta (pictured left) agreed and noted that more emphasis should be put on reaching out to younger generations – or their parents – and having products suitable to address that.
He said: “Maybe its time for a review because the world is changing.”
“Many of us in this room will probably cover our children at the age of 18 because we know its probably going to be the cheapest point at which they can get it – and the likelihood is over the next 60 years they are going to have to claim.”
Priselac agreed and said: “There is so much we could do to look at how we could make these products a little more flexible especially for younger people.”
Going a little deeper on how an education system could get consumers to learn about protection products early enough, Mehta said: “You can split it into two – so the education potentially has to go to parents and guardians because they are the ones that will advise – and you hope they’d advise their children and grandchildren.
“But then for 18, 19, 20-year-olds, the education then comes through the fact that they’ve got an existing policy that has annual statements.
“Get parents and grandparents into wealth clients to use their platform accounts to pay for a £10 a month, £20 a month to start and educate out from there.”
Smith agreed with Mehta and said: “There’s a generation coming, and I think parents are definitely a target market.”
Social media
But Smith also looked at the importance of social media in reaching out to the younger generations.
“You need to make some advertising and marketing relevant to those audiences in that age group – what goes out from Tik Tok, what goes out on Istagram,“ she continued.
“Its about brining that tangibility, that reality of what those products are and what this sector brings to them and what it means.
“Why would you have it, what’s the benefit – put some real life examples in there.”
