The knowledge gap
32 % of respondents thought that terminal illness was the same as critical illness, and almost half thought that the policy ended once a claim had been made. Clearly there’ s a lack of understanding around additional payment conditions and less severe type payouts.
But most striking was the high percentage of‘ don’ t knows’. These are people that have been through the fact-finding process and had an advised service to set up their protection. It goes to show that perhaps, in a lot of cases, the right conversations are not happening.
As advisers, you can give some thought to what difference you can make with your customer conversations to make sure customers really understand what they can use the funds for.
The power of value-added benefits
Traditionally, life insurance has been reactive by nature, but this is no longer enough. Driven by innovation and customer expectations, we ' re moving away from reactive care towards proactive preventative care.
Companies like Square Health are leading the charge, creating a wellness ecosystem. We’ ve recently enhanced our own proposition – HSBC Online Health Services 2 provided in partnership with Square Health – to be more inclusive and offer more services to more customers and family members.
Various services are available, including Digital GP, which people use to treat everyday illnesses, allergies, flu and skin conditions. The service can refer to a specialist as well as diagnose and prescribe seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Early diagnosis and intervention are so important. One of the most common reasons for using the Digital GP service is mole checking. I personally used the online service to check a mole which turned out to be a malignant melanoma. I ' m pleased to say that I am, touch-wood, all good and super-grateful to the service for having identified it so quickly.
40 | Protection Adviser Online