Here’s your friendly reminder that today is National Insurance Awareness Day (NIAD), because – if you’re anything like me – you might feel somewhat overwhelmed by the daily digital deluge of annual celebrations and awareness initiatives. Whether Bunsen burners, jellybeans or telling lies are your thing, you can guarantee that there’s a day for that – and long may ad and marketing execs be grateful for it.
Skeptical as you may be of the seemingly innumerable celebratory days we now contend with, as clients face up to economic turbulence, weather stresses, and in many cases hard market pressures, for the insurance industry and insureds NIAD is perhaps more important than ever.
That’s because NIAD is all about connecting with insureds and should-be insureds to help get them in the know about their coverage and, maybe more critically, what they might be missing out on.
For individuals, that could be considering their life insurance needs, getting cover for a new pet, or thinking about how their driving behavior might have changed. For businesses, this might mean tapping into cyber insurance, shouting about workplace safety initiatives, or reaching out to their friendly insurance broker to talk through their options and changing needs.
Nevertheless, with people feeling stretched and burnout a real issue across the professional spectrum, you’d be forgiven for not leaping to put in the hard yards to bring today to people’s attention. For many agents and brokers, for example, who work tirelessly to get the right deal and answer some tough questions with unwanted answers, it may feel like NIAD is an extension of every day. If you’re working flat out already, it’s a big ask to do more even for this one day of the year.
If you’re here, you probably already know that the world is facing up to hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses from weather events, underinsurance poses a big problem, and that setting up a home business from your apartment without telling your insurance company is a big no-no.
The good news is, you can in part rely on the big brands and public relations machines to push out pieces of the message, and almost nobody could do a better job of bringing ‘cookie coverage’ to the masses than Breyers.
Seriously though, today isn’t just for insureds, it should be for you too.
Insurance, and I say this as a journalist, doesn’t always have the best reputation and that might feel like a burden. Sometimes, you have to make difficult calls. Claims might not go as hoped. Costs might skyrocket and market conditions might bite, perhaps a big client or capacity provider might show you the door.
Maybe – as one insurance leader recently disparaged in conversation with me – when someone in a social setting asks what you do, you bow your head apologetically and mumble out ‘insurance’, as though it’s a mark of the plague.
Perhaps you tell people you ‘fell into the industry’, almost like this is some kind of automatic porcupine-like defense mechanism and you’re questioning your own relevance in this big wide world that’s home to astrophysicists, tech billionaires, and chocolate engineers.
For today at least, stop it. Insurance is by no means perfect, but it does some pretty cool things too. And so, more than likely, do you.
Take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back and reflect on the good stuff you’ve done this past year. It might be that difficult contract you placed; that customer who got their payout; that product you created; that team you built; the people and businesses you protected, even the ones that didn’t need to claim; the funds you and your colleagues raised for charity; maybe for a few of you, that coral reef you helped set on the path to restoration.
Remind your colleagues of their successes and what makes them great.
Together, make this NIAD the unofficial National Insurance Professionals Awareness Day. If you don’t feel like you deserve it, you probably do.
Have you been celebrating National Insurance Awareness Day? Let us know what you’ve been up to in the comments below.
