I have written this post in response to a Linkedin post from Barry Rabkin. I’ve had to post on my blog as my response exceeded the character limit for comments!

Hi Barry,

I respond with regards to the UK protection industry as that’s my area of expertise

I think there are many people who have come into the UK protection industry who have good intention, but have very little operational experience in selling protection at the coalface at all.

Their belief that this is their “Kodak moment” is wonderful in intention, but misses two key points…

“People don’t wake up every day WANTING life insurance like they want to buy stuff or be entertained”

“People don’t wake up thinking they LEGALLY have to get their life insurance sorted, like they do with car insurance”

As such it is a very difficult market to create the momentum that the Amazon’s and Netflix’s have achieved.

While a proportion of people do want to buy online, many of these people simply head to Google which is controlled in the UK by the huge brands of the price comparison websites and the incumbent Insurers. Only a journey with more financial margin will beat them there.

“What seems to still be fundamentally missing is that protection is sold and not bought, and this has fundamental effect on the market approach you can take”

There are some great ideas, but they face a serious fight when trying to find distribution.

At best many of these players will be swallowed up by the incumbents, which we have already seen begin to happen with some of the bigger names in protection technology.

“For true disruption of the UK protection market it is going to take a complete rethink of the entire journey from end to end – click to claim – using a combination of experience AND fresh ideas”

Plans must include a unique approach to distribution. Only then will anyone have a chance of creating their Kodak moment.

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If you’d like to find out how I can help your protection business, get in touch >>.

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