The PPP - The Year Ahead

The Year Ahead

Season 4 of the Practical Protection Podcast was brought to an end in December. The final episode focused on the cost of insurance, and how much your age can impact how much you pay for insurance.

Season 5 is now in full swing. Kathryn is joined by co-host Roy McLoughlin and Peter Hamilton for the first episode, to talk about the different roles that Peter holds within the industry and the things that can be done to enhance the insurance world. The roles which Peter has improve access to insurance as well as better the insurance world’s reputation.

Peter currently works for Zurich and has been within the industry for around 40 years. Peter has experience in a number of things, but his main role is to look into how our sector reacts to industry issues and access to insurance. Last year he picked up a role of insurance ambassador for access and disability. If this isn’t something you’ve heard of, Peter is one of 17 ambassadors within different industries around the UK, who report to the disability unit within the cabinet office, aiming to improve the accessibility and quality of services.

Following on from the brilliant work done by Johnny Timpson MBE in this ambassador role, Peter tries to bring together different aspects of the insurance industry, such as insurers, reinsurers, advisers and consumer groups, to collaborate and optimise different stages of an insurance journey. Peter and many others have worked incredibly hard to make access to insurance fairer, but there certainly is still room for improvement. 

Roy goes on to explain something which many people may have come to realise, that the stigma around mental health has lessened through the pandemic. Before the pandemic there were many people struggling in silence and maybe not seeking help where it might have really helped, a lot of people now look for that help. Hopefully this continues and people feel encouraged to use the help available to them.

An insurer’s decision is made by looking at data, and there are now so many ways that data can be collected. Many people have new gadgets such as smart watches which can track a lot of their health information and exercise habits, maybe this can be used to provide more tailored products? Could positive lifestyle choices improve access to insurance? This is definitely a conversation to be had.

Whilst talking about the collection of data, Kathryn, Roy and Peter go on to talk about electronic GPRs, which have been in a lot of discussions recently. A lot of underwriters require a medical report in order to make their decision. Unfortunately, the NHS is under a great deal of pressure with the pandemic so reports are not being completed as quickly as you would like them to, understandably so. This can impact people at many different levels. Some people wait on a medical report to be able to take our protection insurance and some may be waiting on the report in order to make a claim on their policy.

Going forward, working with the NHS to digitalise medical reports and potentially even clients medical records to make it much simpler to obtain the necessary information, is something that we as an industry need to do. As Peter mentions, would it be possible to ever have access to our own digital medical record, which we can then give an insurer access to rather than waiting months for reports? It might not be as simple as that, there certainly are pros and cons, but it’s an interesting idea.

Electronic GPRs are much more efficient and helpful for advisers and underwriters. Not only is this more helpful, it could also be better for data protection too. Kathryn mentions a big data breach from a GP surgery when they posted a patient’s records to the wrong address. Using an eGPR system could have prevented this, as it is simply the click of a button on the computer systems that fires the information directly to the insurers.

Data protection and trust go hand in hand, as a client wants to trust that their information is safe with their advisers and insurers. Protection insurance often gets a bad rap as people tend to categorise all financial services as one, but protection insurance is actually quite different with significantly high claims statistics. ‘Trust is massively important, as people are trusting insurers to offer the protection and security that they advertise. A lot of trust is needed in advisers too, clients want to know that they’re being offered the best product.

Following on from that, people quite often like to know that their money is being spent ethically and sustainably. The sustainability of the protection industry is something which should be looked at more closely, and corporate social responsibility is something that is starting to influence people’s choices

A real positive change can be made if we ensure that all parties within the protection industry are working together. Though the protection industry has come a long way, there are many things that can be continuously improved.

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