Insurance companies need to contact their customers more frequently and should send out at least an annual statement, according to Phil Jeynes, director of corporate strategy at Reassured.
Jeynes (pictured) was speaking at Health & Protection’s inaugural Protection Forum in The City earlier today, on the topic: ‘A personal cancer case study’.
Jeynes recently got the all clear following his successful operation to treat colon cancer. Just two weeks after his operation earlier in March, he was back at work.
Today, he spoke to industry colleagues about his experience and some of the lessons he had learned.
Jeynes said: “You need to write to customers at least once a year as an insurer and as a broker.”
Customers need to be reminded what coverage they have, and that if they need a conversation or any help to get in touch, he maintained.
“This just needs to become standard.
“Its absolutely insane that we’re still having this conversation.”
Jeynes had a 21-year-old life policy with Scottish Provident that he got for himself in 2003.
As an “industry nerd”, finding his policy once he got his cancer diagnosis wasn’t difficult for him,” he continued.
“I knew exactly where it was, what draw it was in, what it looked like, how many pages it was – no problem at all.
The policy included a letter from himself recommending the policy.
“And that was the only correspondence I had on that policy for two decades,” Jeynes added.
But he noted: “Who else would have kept that policy document, a dusty old thing from a company that doesn’t even exist?
“It would have got lost in a move, it would have been buried somewhere else.”
And then once discovering the company no longer existed (it was now a Royal London policy) another customer may have panicked.
But another issue is that as a good customer who paid by direct debit for 21 years, he should have been approached for other products, Jeynes said.
“Sell me something else – please.”
“So for annual statements – just get it done guys. Its way, way past that conversation and we could be losing customers.“