Earlier this year, Bluezone Insurance announced its official rebrand to Blueberry Life, accompanied by the launch of its expanded Life Insurance offering to support more chronic health conditions. This rebrand followed its most recent partnership with LifeSearch, to give customers outside of its current product parameters the opportunity to access advice.
Speaking exclusively with Protection Reporter, David Packman, Chief Growth Officer at Blueberry Life, explained “If you want to get Life Insurance in the UK traditionally and you have a chronic condition like Type 2 Diabetes, you’ll probably have to go through an online journey with an adviser, answer a million questions about your health, and get an indicative quote. That’s not a final quote, it’s called a quick quote.
“It’s a little bit deceptive because as you click through as a customer, you think this is where your premium will be but then the provider will say it needs more information to understand your true risk,” he said.
I don’t know about you, but answering a million questions about my health to get a quick quote doesn’t fill me with joy.
10. When life gives you lemons, eat some blueberries
Ahead of the Carer’s Leave Act, effective on the 6th April 2024, Protection Reporter spoke with Antonio Ribeiro, Founder of Yurtle, about why the insurance sector needs to stop caregivers robbing from their future to pay for their present.
Antonio was born in Portugal, raised in Brazil, and studied in the UK before entering the insurance sector via Lloyds of London’s Generalist Graduate Programme. In 2016, Antonio decided to transition into the world of investment management, landing a role at Legal & General (L&G) where he was exposed to the “challenges and opportunities that come with our inverted population pyramid.”
Personally, Antonio has been a caregiver for multiple members of his family. “My Grandad lived with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) for eleven years – he was one of the first two people to be diagnosed in Portugal,” he said.
9. Yurtle: Caregivers are robbing from their future to pay for their present
At the age of 25, Kevin Carr, Managing Director at Carr Consulting & CEO of Protection Review, was living at home with his parents and thought ‘I don’t have a mortgage or children, and I’m not married,’ but still…it might be a good idea to buy some of that protection stuff.
Shortly after, he purchased Income Protection (IP) and Life Insurance with accelerated Critical Illness (CI) which has subsequently been added to over the years. Since then, Kevin has heard countless advisers suggest that some people believe buying protection in this scenario could be over-insuring or even mis-selling. Do you agree?
8. Kevin Carr: Did I mis-sell myself?
Next up, Alan Waddington, Distribution Director at Cirencester Friendly, took a closer look at product terms in the protection space, particularly IP. Cirencester recently reported that 57% of adults in the UK would consider buying a product that paid an income if unable to work through accident or illness.
“Unfortunately, these potential customers don’t have a clue what protection does until an adviser explains it to them, or they decipher one of our many brochures which (to those outside the industry) might as well have been written in Latin,” he said.
Any protection product should say what it does in simple terms. IP pays a regular sum of money, equivalent to a percentage of the policyholder’s income, in the event of ill-health or injury resulting in the inability to work their job or occupation and subsequent loss of income. “In other words, IP protects day-to-day life – so why’s it not called Life Insurance? This would’ve been a great name if it hadn’t already been taken,” Alan concluded.
7. Alan Waddington: I fear we’re stuck with the term ‘Income Protection’…for now
Gianfranco Lot, Chief Underwriting Officer P&C Reinsurance at Swiss Re, discussed why the future of underwriting shouldn’t be driven by technology alone. He believes that in today’s digital age, data and technology are transforming traditional underwriting & risk assessment practices. However, as automation and data-driven tools handle these tasks, the demand for new skill sets will grow, reshaping career paths in the field.
“Underwriters will need to get more comfortable with filtering relevant information, remaining curious about risk-relevant information and be able to make sense of patterns seen in the data. Within this context, the human intelligence that underwriters bring to the table will remain crucial.
“While technology can process data on an unprecedented scale, the ability of humans to ask the right questions, analyse complex scenarios, and apply judgement cannot be replicated by robots,” he noted.
You’ve probably read this year’s Association of Mortgage Intermediaries’ (AMI) Protection Viewpoint. Speaking to Martin O’Connell, Founder of The Protection Revolution, he thought it was a “must-read” but didn’t understand why the report had been hailed as a strong indicator that the advice profession is heading in the right direction.
For example, AMI’s ‘Making Protection Personal’ revealed that 21% of those who took out a mortgage via an adviser asked about protection – up from 11% in 2023. “Surely if protection advice is part of what we do, that figure should be heading towards 0%?” he exclaimed.
Furthermore, the report stated that 41% of advisers said they were having more protection conversations. If twice as many customers are asking about protection, should we be surprised that this figure has increased?!
5. Why don’t customers take my protection advice?
The protection industry is constantly exploring new ways to reach 18-30-year-olds – who more often than not are renters rather than homeowners. Providers have explored product innovation, tapping into the non-underwritten product market in hopes of attracting younger consumers.
Others, particularly LifeSearch, have explored strategic partnerships to kickstart protection conversations in new spaces where consumers are already engaged with financial planning. According to Edward Axon, Chief Growth Officer at LifeSearch, “How consumers choose brands, their buying behaviour, attitudes, and engagement are shifting dramatically and at an incredible pace.
“We believe partnerships are likely to create more buzz and genuine consumer engagement than TV ads […] Our protection services may never be seen ‘above the line’ – it’s not our ambition. We’re more akin to ‘Intel Inside’; empowering and serving consumers while they’re in another brand experience,” he said.
4. How can strategic partnerships kickstart protection conversations amongst younger consumers?
James Daley, Managing Director at Fairer Finance, discussed the industry’s obligation to offer fair value and how price isn’t always fair simply because the customer is willing to pay it. James believes advisers need to be able to frame the remuneration they’re making in the context of the costs & service they’re providing.
“It drives a stake through the idea that price is fair simply because the customer is willing to pay it. Fair value (and the Consumer Duty more broadly) asks all companies in the distribution chain to think about the value they’re offering,” he added.
3. James Daley: The price isn’t always fair simply because the customer is willing to pay it
Speaking exclusively to Protection Reporter, James Lovett, CEO & Founder of Lovethorn, said the industry is “full of conflict between insurers and the insured, and that fundamentally makes it a disgustingly inefficient place.” He believes that if the industry understood people properly and incorporated the right technology, “we could make everything fairer, efficient, and more sustainable […] that’s what we’re working towards.”
When asked if a people-led approach has been pushed to the wayside by the industry, James said it’s often spoken about, but “I can’t remember the last time I saw substantial change that was people-led. Often, it’s people asking about sensible add-ons for a protection product and how do we make those numbers work, as opposed to, genuinely almost starting again.”
2. Lovethorn: There’s too much conflict between insurers and the insured
In February, the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) announced a new Occupational Health Taskforce, led by Dame Carol Black, to tackle in-work sickness and stop people falling out of the workforce.
This taskforce was established after the DWP found only 28% of employers in the UK provide any form of occupational health for employees with long-term health conditions – major corporations (89%) are nearly three times more likely to provide support than small & medium enterprises (SMEs).
However, as Peter Hamilton, Head of Market Engagement at Zurich Insurance, rightly points out, “While there are many aspects of occupational health, vocational rehabilitation tends to be the poor relation; it’s overlooked and forgotten […] rehabilitation is the unsung hero, it’s the difference between people getting back to work or not.”
If you’d like to contribute to Protection Reporter in 2025, please contact Tabitha Lambie at [email protected]
