Attitudes across the health and protection insurance sector are changing for the better, but more needs to be done.
While some of the sector’s youngest professionals have war stories about being asked how old they are and the neurodivergent still struggle to be properly accommodated at work, the demographics of people working in the sector clearly are changing.
But individuals across the sector maintain that more needs to be done across product development and to recruit more diverse individuals to engage and better serve those communities which feel insurance never pays out for them in more ways than one.
How old are you?
“My experience has been broadly positive,” Juliette Meads, national account manager at Vitality, tells Health & Protection.
“However, when I first started out in the field as a BDM [business development manager], there were several times when it was clear that I was judged upon immediately walking into a room.
“‘B***** hell… how old are you?’ was the first thing a firm principal said to me as I walked into a room of 20 male brokers.
“I retorted ’23, how old are you?’ – and was met with a profuse apology suddenly realising what he had said.”
But there are so many stories like this, Meads adds.
“The assumption that I was more junior to any male colleague when dual calling was also frustrating, particularly if they were shadowing me. I must admit though, for every rude person, there are 10 allies.”
Unapologetically Black
Nina Brown, protection specialist at Pam Brown Mortgages, is another young industry professional who can relate to feeling very conscious of being the minority in the room.
“I have never really known any different,” Brown reveals. “I did not grow up in London, I grew up in a small town in Oxfordshire.
“I have also been used to being the only Black person in the room. In school, the Black children were separated between forms, so they had one in each. I haven’t necessarily known any different. So, coming into an industry which lacks diversity, I almost see it as normal.
“At certain events, I do pick on the fact the only other Black people in the room are the servers or waiters and I feel a duty to make sure I am extra nice to them compared to everyone else in the room.
“First, because I instantly relate to them more but second, because I would hate to think they feel inferior in a room filled with white people.”
And since starting work at her mum Pam’s company three years ago, Brown reveals she has now gained more confidence to be herself.
“This comes first with confidence but second, certain traits which are seen as ‘Black’ are now also seen as trendy when it comes to things such as music taste, fashion sense and language,” she explains.
“The term I love to hear is someone being ‘unapologetically Black’. I can act completely myself and people applaud me for it.”
But for young women like Meads and Brown to become the industry’s leaders of tomorrow, Meads maintains more needs to be done to support women to progress through the talent pipeline.
“From middle-management into senior management is crucial; skills development, stretch opportunities, mentoring and allyship, flexible working and supporting shared parental leave are just some of the things that I feel need to be in place in order for progress to continue,” Meads adds.
Role models
According to Mirjana De Souza, new business administration technical adviser at Zurich, having role models to look up to is also crucial.
“I think having more representatives and role models from different backgrounds is vital to encouraging others to join the sector,” De Souza explains.
“We know from research that diverse teams are more productive and more able to respond to different customer needs through their collective ideas.
“Zurich is a business that listens to its employees through things like surveys and its network of employee resource groups. These help to shape many of the company’s HR policies as well as setting up programmes like ‘inclusion allies’ so that colleagues can talk to people in confidence should any issues arrive.
“It is things like this that make people feel included and part of the business.”
Mandatory anti-racism training
Further evidencing work being done to improve diversity across the sector, Aviva medical director Dr Suba M points to the insurer’s initiatives.
This includes mandatory anti-racism training for all Aviva employees, its employee network Aviva Origins and the setting of targets to increase both female and ethnically diverse leadership at a senior level.
She also lauding work carried out across the sector such as the embedding of diversity and inclusion in the regulator’s strategy for 2022 to 2024 and the Association of British Insurer’s diversity, equity and inclusion strategy.
However, Dr Suba M says more needs to be done and recommends three actions the insurance sector can take to improve diversity.
These are:
- ensuring people from different backgrounds feel a sense of belonging in the sector,
- making sure existing processes – from recruitment to market research – are inclusive and attractive to a wider segment of the population,
- to challenge assumptions over who the customer is and what they look like.
And all of this work is crucial for the customer base for protection and health insurance to grow.
This is echoed by Nina Brown who explains her approach.
“People buy from people and people trust people who they relate with. It’s as simple as that,” she says.
“I use my social media to not only hopefully be a role model for younger Black men and women to enter the industry.
“But also, it is known that the Black communities are one of the least likely communities to take out insurance and I do believe this is down to the level of trust and the fact the narrative of an insurance broker is the typical older white man.
“I am here to try and change that narrative and become an adviser who everyone trusts and relates to.”
Feeling uninsurable
Sheun Oke, regional sales manager at Access Financial Services, agrees a number of myths and misconceptions pervade Afro-Caribbean communities who believe insurance companies do not pay claims.
Oke explains she is on a mission to help these communities make informed decisions but tells Health & Protection this mission has not been helped by some conditions affecting Afro-Caribbean communities being perceived as uninsurable.
“I discovered some of the medical issues that mainly affect the Afro-Caribbean communities in the UK are not insurable, leaving some despondent after several declines from the mainstream insurance companies,” she says.
“One of these is sickle cell anaemia. I am still continuing to work with a few providers who may be open to working with us to create room to accommodate these.”
An important step in tackling this problem is increasing the number of advisers and underwriters from the Afro-Caribbean communities making decisions, Oke adds.
“I believe we need more advisers and underwriters from the Afro-Caribbean communities, so we have more voices talking about and standing up for us at the decision tables within the sector,” she continues.
“In most cases, I have realised that until people walk in your shoes, they may not exactly be able to empathise with your pain.
“That is why I am presently recruiting more advisers in the community and also coaching them to educate, so we have more families building their financial resilience,” Oke adds.
Explaining data use
Data and underwriting information is a vital part of the insurance process but also has the potential to be a key source of contention in how the industry addresses diverse communities.
As Canada Life head of talent acquisition Gavin Withers explains, the sector needs to raise its game in explaining why it collects certain data so as not to be perceived as discriminating against certain groups.
“Given group protection is an intermediated product, there is much room for improvement regarding communication with the end customer,” Withers says.
“As an industry standard, we will ask for assigned sex at birth on health declarations and customer renewal data and support services such as virtual GPs will also require this information for triage and diagnosis.
“In all cases there is a legitimate reason why we would require this information, but as an industry we don’t always explain why particularly well, on what can be a sensitive subject.”
Helping the neurodivergent navigate barriers
But for certain groups there are barriers to getting into the sector in the first place, according to Kathryn Knowles, co-managing director at Cura Financial Services, who is neurodivergent.
“There are certainly barriers in people being able to get into the industry and develop a career from the start,” Knowles tells Health & Protection.
“I was personally involved in supporting someone that was neurodivergent and wanted to become an adviser. Their condition meant they could not cope with double negative questions – the questions that the majority of us hate and need to certainly stop and have a good think about.
“I spoke to the accreditation body and they were not prepared to offer any support in regards to this, so that the person did not have to face such questions.
“Unfortunately this meant that the person’s career as a trainee adviser stopped almost immediately.”
But Knowles added she thinks society is becoming more accepting with organisations like the Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment and Neurodiversity (Gain) launching in recent years.
And this acceptance also extends to her own team, she said.
“They don’t eat fish and chips when they know I’ll be in the office as I’m super sensitive to smells,” Knowles continues.
“When I was diagnosed I was self-conscious for a while about anything I might do that is odd.
“But then I realised that I’m just me and I always have behaved the way that I have, I just feel a bit more free to allow myself to not mask in certain situations,” she adds.
