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Starting the Conversation

By Rebecca Hill | Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

What do British people like talking about? The weather immediately springs to mind. There is so much to discuss when you can have four seasons in one day. We love our pets and are only too keen to share cute anecdotes about our beloved furry or scaly friends. Travel, celebrities and the Royal Family are also favourite topics.

In contrast, there are a whole raft of subjects we’d prefer never to mention. At the top of that list are money, health and death. Unfortunately, the protection conversation relates very firmly to these subjects. You can’t really talk about protecting your income if you can’t work through illness or injury without bringing them up. Is this why we find it so hard to have the protection conversation?

For years we’ve tried various ways to get people to focus on the subjects they would rather avoid. Shock tactics, cute children and animals, stories of woe that pull at the heartstrings to name just a few. Each of these have had some success, but the protection gap remains stubbornly difficult to close. The FCA’s interim Pure Protection Market Study report noted that 58% of people don’t hold a protection product and 59% of these people have never considered their protection needs.

So how do we change this? Rather than looking to alter behaviours, getting people to address topics that make them feel uncomfortable, maybe it’s time to recognise this reticence and think about how we can start the conversation in a way that people immediately want to engage with.

Instead of focusing on the gloomy side of protection – the pain, the financial hardship, the worry – how about concentrating on the amazing benefits it offers? There are so many feel good stories in our industry that tap into subjects that people love – triumph over adversity, people rallying together at a time of crisis, the power of the human will to survive – why are we not shouting about these from the rooftops?

Anyone who has had a protection policy and needed to make a claim, knows the value they offer. As the FCA noted, acceptance rates are high relative to other insurance products, at an average of 98%. While money can’t bring a loved one back or cure an illness, it buys choices that people would not otherwise have. It gives them the option to face hard times in a way that works for them, allowing them to dictate what they do, where they go and how they live their lives.

It also buys them time. Time to spend on their recovery. Time to spend with the people and things they love. Time to spend on their passions and the things that make them excited and want to get up in the mornings. Who wouldn’t be interested in these things?

We know how difficult it can be for people to tell their success stories and their reasons for staying silent are completely understandable in the age of social media. However, there are ways to get around this.

The success of Tripadvisor and similar websites shows people are very happy to review a restaurant or a hotel as they can do so with a degree of anonymity. Encouraging claimants to share their experiences in a similar way, by requiring them to reveal less of themselves so they feel safe talking would help to get the conversation going. While not all of these will be positive, it would at least get a discourse started, which must be better than the current deafening silence.

The industry needs to have confidence. By and large we are doing the right things and millions of people are better off because of our products. By encouraging customers to talk about their experiences, discussing how it has helped them and the people they love we might just get more conversations started.

Rebecca Hill – Senior Manager – Marketing & Communications