"Having been in the industry for over forty years and having seen many, many other campaigns in that time, 7Families stood out to me because of its scale. Inside Track is another initiative that’s successfully brought the industry together to promote education."
- Mark Cracknell, Commercial Director at UnderwriteMe
Last month, teams of six from across the industry gathered to compete at Inside Track - the ultimate team-based gameshow experience designed to pit the very best in protection against one another; who doesn’t enjoy some friendly rivalry?!
For 2025, Inside Track was supported by UnderwriteMe as Sponsor of its ‘Industry Insight’ round. I spoke with Mark Cracknell, Commercial Director at UnderwriteMe, about why he’s supporting this initiative.
Mark stressed, "At UnderwriteMe, we know the importance of constantly building awareness […] UnderwriteMe may be a technology platform provider, but we take our role in promoting adviser education seriously."
"We need to continue digging down to see how we can close that protection gap."
The Industry Insight round featured questions written by Setul Mehta (SM Advice), Christine Husbands (RedArc), and Emma Vaughan (Simplybiz).
UnderwriteMe opted to sponsor this round as it focused on "insight into what drives consumers to purchase protection, gaps in consumer awareness when enquiring about policies, and building on that, trying to understand how we can support advisers’ engagement with customers."
Mark believes that the protection market needs to "continue digging down to see how we can close that protection gap […] How do we get to a situation where more customers have relevant protection for when they need it most?"
Championing education, Inside Track also supported the ongoing work of the charity-led campaign 7Families, fundraising £10,000 for upcoming awareness initiatives. 7Families ran between 2014-16 and followed the lives of seven families who’d suffered an income shock but didn’t have Income Protection (IP).
Equally funded by insurers across the industry, 7Families provided payments to these families – replicating what they would have received if they had IP in place. Throughout this campaign, the families were filmed regularly to document the impact of the payments & added-value services provided – 7Families celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024.
"It’s fantastic to see how everybody has gathered together at Inside Track to promote 7Families, to understand it and the awareness it’s built on the importance of IP."
Mark thought 7Families was an "incredibly important" initiative, especially in terms of awareness and bringing the industry together. "It brought insurers together, it brought intermediaries together, and it brought industry bodies together," he said.
He believes the initiative proves that "we need to invest in this type of awareness campaign because it highlights the importance of our role in making sure customers have protection in place."
"Having been in the industry for over forty years and having seen many, many other campaigns in that time, 7Families stood out to me because of its scale."
"Inside Track is another initiative that’s successfully brought the industry together to promote education," Mark concluded.
