C-Suite - MGA: Calling all advocates

The pre and post-Christmas floods have undoubtedly brought misery to many UK residents at the worst possible time of the year in what is becoming a depressingly familiar scenario of inundation, particularly in certain geographies.

As far as I can tell, the response from the insurance industry has been robust, efficient and sympathetic. Loss adjusters have been working hard, insurers have made every effort to get representatives into affected areas and the overall approach has been to deal with the direct personal and financial consequences of claims as quickly and unquestioningly as humanly possible.

Yet you only need to switch on a radio phone or walk into your local pub to hear loud and clear what the public thinks of insurance overall. The issue is much wider than flood claims. We are more popular than bankers – just about – but the balance of perception still seems to be one of an uncaring and opportunistic industry, somehow at odds with the public.

Little progress appears to have been made in the past few years in convincing customers that our industry’s product performs a vital social and economic function, and yet, it does. Insurance has so much going for it as an enabler in society over and above simply indemnifying individuals and business at the point when something unfortunate happens to them.

Even a brief consideration of the role insurance plays in the world makes our reputation perplexing. It facilitates trade and commerce, supporting businesses and economic growth. It helps relieve the burden on governments – and, therefore, taxpayers – in the provision of social security. It actively encourages and rewards loss mitigation. It bestows peace of mind and creates financial stability. You could argue insurance offers an intangible product but it’s also one that works for the buyer the vast majority of the time when they need it.

With that in mind, why is there still a communication problem? Why, in comparison to the social good the industry creates, is our reputation so poor? And how do we convince an uninterested public that there are wider social and economic benefits that transcend individual policy outcomes?

Ultimately, it boils down to the industry still having a very low profile – relative to its size. We also fail to turn all those who are pleased with the service they receive, or our response to challenging situations, into advocates.

If policyholders themselves speak out about their positive experiences of engaging with our industry, it will always be more compelling than us speaking for them. We also have to recognise that enhancing our collective reputation isn’t something to be left to our representative trade bodies to tackle. It is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to find and share any positive stories through our own increasing number of communication channels but we also need to create them in the first place.

No single PR initiative or industry campaign is ever going to be persuasive enough to transform the long-held image of insurance. It is going to come down to hard work and a shared mindset of continually striving for improvement through efficiency of process, speed of issue resolution and clarity of communication at all times.

The odds will be stacked against us. Reputationally, one negative story will always have the power to nullify the many positive ones before it. If we all focus on trying to create insurance advocates, instead of waiting for others to showcase its critics, we might just begin to redress the balance.

2016 will bring many challenges for the industry but making real progress in the battle to improve its reputation could be the biggest one of all. It would certainly be the most rewarding.

Paul Upton
CEO, Evolution Underwriting