Most insurance advisers know their product base inside out, but being a good insurance adviser is a lot more than just selecting a policy and selling it to the client. It takes a deep level of involvement with difficult and sometimes traumatic personal circumstances, and, often, you will be privy to information that the client has not even shared with their friends or family.
Insurance managing director at SuperCity Mortgages and Insurance Jamie James started her career taking claims calls at The Earthquake Commission (EQC), and says the deeply personal nature of those discussions identified a clear gap in training for her – how to speak to someone who has just suffered a difficult life event. She says this kind of communication is something most advisers pick up solo as they progress throughout their career, but this can leave them anxious or unsure of how to set the right tone. Given the purely product-based training that most advisers receive, this part of the job often goes unrecognised and unaddressed.
“I was asked to help man the lines because of all the claims that were coming through after the Christchurch earthquakes,” James told Insurance Business.
“I ended up staying at EQC for nine months and that was extremely difficult, because, at times, I was taking calls from people who were suicidal because of their circumstances.”
“In a way that was the most informative introduction that I could have had, because I realised two things very quickly,” she explained. “The first was that people generally do not understand insurance, and they don’t understand the choices they’re making until it’s time to make a claim, by which time the consequences can be devastating. The second was that people generally didn’t have a strong relationship with their adviser.”
James says she began her career thinking it would be all about the product, but soon realised that the depth of information she was entrusted with went far beyond what was the norm for other jobs in financial services. When she decided to become an insurance broker, she was determined to forge that deep personal understanding of her client’s lives, and never to put herself in a position of worry as to whether her clients were adequately covered.
“I can’t think of another role where you know more about your clients than what their family and friends know,” James explained.
“You are in a position where you know their hopes, wishes and dreams, because you’re financially modelling things out for them. You know what their income is, and you know about their medical history. That’s when you can form that level of trust and transparency, and ultimately put them into the best possible position should a claim need to be made. You know their world, and you’re the one they’re going to phone when that world gets tipped upside down.”
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When things get hard for clients, a broker can sometimes be required to act as something of a financial counsellor – that external individual who isn’t family or a friend, but who can offer advice as to how to navigate that difficult time period. James says she has previously advised clients on how to effectively spend their insurance payout, and has played an active role in ensuring that good communication is maintained between partners when faced with challenging life circumstances.
“It’s about being a human being with a heart and a soul, talking to your client and being there for them,” James said.
“Insurers hold workshops on their products, but what advisers would really benefit from is a workshop on how to cope during claim situations – working with husband and wife dynamics, or dealing with someone who’s just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. What are the things that you should or shouldn’t say? Nobody trains you on that, you just learn it as you go along.”
Katherine Gobbi, CEO of EMLife says that dealing with cases involving serious conditions can be very emotionally draining, and that it is important to have strategies in place to manage that on a day to day basis. This is where leadership and team communication becomes vital, as well as a focus on ‘positive psychology’ – maintaining an atmosphere of support within your office, and ensuring staff know where to turn.
“This is something I’ve really had to work hard on in the last few years - especially working with police, and working with high-risk conditions like PTSD,” Gobbi explained.
“Unfortunately you do get some suicidal customers, and so there was always anxiety when making decisions about a policy or process, or ensuring you’re appointing someone with enough skill to take on the task. That anxiety was very hard to release, but I had to learn quickly or else I couldn’t keep going.”
“I had a lot of support during that time, and the team was just focused on positive psychology,” she continued. “On Mondays they would set themselves small tasks to achieve, and then on Fridays they celebrate the progress they had made, and celebrate looking after one another. That sort of weekly cycle kept us going, even though our customer sometimes is really, really sick.
“When I notice myself getting down, I can go back and read the emails on a Friday where they are celebrating whatever they achieved that week and the clients they’ve helped, and I think, ‘this makes it all worth it’.”
