The third in our series of profiles with Health & Protection Awards 2022 winners, Rob Saunders, CEO of ActiveQuote, speaks about soaring demand for individual PMI, insurers adapting their propositions to younger customers and why matching the right adviser to the right customer was a key reason behind the firm’s double win.
Demand for individual private medical insurance (PMI) is “soaring”, ActiveQuote CEO Rob Saunders told Health & Protection.
“Our enquiries in January were 51% higher than the volume we saw in January 2022 and that was 20% higher than the same period in 2020,” he said.
“This kind of impact in individual health insurance since January 2020 doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.”
But expanding on emerging trends within the data, Saunders pointed to a younger demographic coming through in customer enquiries over the last year or so.
“The average age of customers coming through for the product has reduced quite dramatically,” he continued.
“In the last six months the average age is 35. It was about 42 pre-pandemic.”
And Saunders added that insurers were starting to adapt their propositions to cater for these younger customers.
“It’s good to see them make it a bit more accessible but I do still think there are more opportunities, there is more that could be done,” he said.
“I think insurers are exploring more entry level products to cater for a younger age demographic, not quite fully individual PMI but a PMI-lite type of product which can be really appealing to that kind of demographic.”
But equally, in the world of protection, Saunders added it was also good to see the return of unemployment-only cover.
“That really is that market returning to pre-pandemic conditions – so all products are back to how they were pre-pandemic,” he noted.
“It has taken quite a long time for us to get there so if our customers can buy unemployment-only as a standalone product and long term income protection, that means the full suite of products has come back which is helpful.”
‘Icing on the cake’
Reflecting on the company’s double Award wins in October, Saunders said he was “blown away” by the reception from the industry – on the night itself and subsequently on social media.
“The Awards are held in high esteem and I think for us having won the best individual healthcare firm in 2021, to follow it up and be recognised again in 2022, was a huge accolade for us,” he said.
“And to be recognised in protection was the icing on the cake for us because it’s the two sides of our business model where we do health and protection and we think we do a really good job of both.
“Having that industry recognition of both sides of the business was magic to be honest.
“The ability to come back into the office the next day and share that with everybody was a great feel-good factor for everybody in the business and the organisation and not only for us, for our partners, our insurer partners and distribution partners have all shared in that. So it was huge for us.”
Matching advisers with customers
As to why the company emerged as double-Award winners, Saunders said it spoke to the clear vision the firm had to inspire customers to take control of their future health and protection and the firm’s focus on its outbound contact strategy in particular.
“Traditionally most organisations in this industry will call the freshest lead or the freshest enquiry first and call them several times over several days and will see how many people we speak to,” Saunders explained.
“That for us many years ago was a very archaic ‘unconsumer’ centric way of trying to approach this challenge as not all customers want to speak to you.
“Different customers have different motivations and different propensities to do things depending on where they are in the buying process so we have invested quite a lot into being very data driven in this stuff.
“We have written a lot of algorithms which look through and assess propensity modelling to work out who is the right customer to call at the right time and more recently we have added into that algorithm who is the most appropriate sales adviser for that customer to speak with.
“So, without going into too much detail, effectively we put the advisers and the customers into buckets, different buckets of characteristics and demographics and we can see that our adviser group will have a better experience with certain customer demographic groups.
“Therefore what we do is try and match the best adviser with the best customer group as often as we possibly can – and that has delivered great outcomes for us.
“It is making a better customer experience for the customer. It is making for a better experience for the adviser.
“And from a productivity perspective it has made us more efficient in terms of our conversion and enquiries through to sale.”
Show judges what we’ve done
According to Saunders the most important things was to try and articulate all of this detail in the firm’s Awards submission.
“The key thing for us is the fact that we talk about these things but then we back it up with performance testimonials and actionable data that we will actually show in the submission,” Saunders continued.
“This is what we’ve done. This is the impact and we can substantiate that. And without being a judge and speaking to judges, I feel that’s what helps us to stand out from the crowd.
“We do what we say and we can actually substantiate it with data and facts which I think is quite helpful for the judges.”
And looking ahead to the rest of 2023, it appears Saunders is expecting another record year for the business.
“Last year was a record year for us, I’ve got no doubt that 2023 is going to surpass that so I’m hugely excited by the year that lies ahead,” he added
“We’re going to continue to invest in the areas where we’re winning – in our customer experience, our data, using that to deliver better customer outcomes.”
Entries open
The Health & Protection Awards 2023 are open for adviser entries now.
In all advisers can submit entries in 14 categories, recognising their achievements across the whole of the health and protection insurance sector.
The awards website www.healthandprotectionawards.com includes the full list of categories and the criteria which advisers should address in their entries.
The closing date for entries is 19 May and these can be submitted through the awards website or by following this link.
There is also just one month to go until voting closes for this year’s Health & Protection Provider Awards.
We’re inviting all independent intermediaries – advisers, brokers and employee benefit consultants to get involved. Simply click this link and vote for the insurers and providers that have done the best job for you and your clients over the past year.