Insurance brokers know better than most what it’s like to have conversations on topics that people would prefer not to think about. But they also know better than most that it is often those very same conversations that make all the difference in the long run. As such discussions rank, talking about how to manage the finances of relatives or friends if or when they are no longer about to do so, is surely high on the ‘would rather not think about it’ list.
Yet, as noted by the director of policy and engagement at the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) Dr Matthew Connell, these are conversations that need to happen, particularly in light of the UK’s ageing population. Demographic changes mean more people than ever are going to have to take on these responsibilities, he said, and many of these people are not trained or prepared to handle them.
This was the reason behind the CII’s consumer guide, ‘Later life, Starting the conversation’, he said, because caring responsibilities can occur on a very gradual basis - and people can find themselves taking on significant duties without knowing where to go for help.
“It’s a guide around what kind of conversations you can have with the people around you, either older or younger,” he said, “and how you can have these conversations throughout your working life… We’re trying to address that issue of how the risks in our lives are often shared out quite inequally, simply because they fell that way because all too often people never had a conversation about them until it was too late.”
A key part of this is around insurance, Dr Connell said, and provisions need to be in place to grant relevant permissions to families or partners about their financial affairs and to update the relevant insurance provider if somebody develops an impairment. Supporting these conversations at a national level is important as insurers are likely to face increasing challenges as a result of the ageing society. It’s about preparing for the future and deciding not to let these discussions go ahead but rather working proactively and seizing control of the narrative.
COVID has been a difficult time for consumers and insurers alike but he noted that now is the time for insurance companies to start thinking about the unmet service requirements of their customers as a point of differentiation.
“It’s definitely made it a lot more difficult for people to even try and get their affairs together,” he said, “and again, I think that’s had an impact on financial services and on thinking about how we can deal with those issues. Research has shown that a lot more customers consider themselves in a vulnerable position during the lockdown.
“And those issues need to [translate] into training and making sure that insurers have their systems right so they are able to listen to people and give them the space to explain what the situation is, so they can really establish a good understanding of their needs. Having the right training in place means that when people have to hold those difficult conversations, they only have to do it once.”
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These were always concerns, he said, but they’ve really come into focus over the COVID crisis as so many people have been under increased emotional pressure. The crisis has therefore really served as a wake-up call to the sector on how important that quality and empathetic service provision is to the financial services offering.
The CII spoke to a lot of people for this report, he said, and a takeaway was that the question you fundamentally need to ask is, “what would you tell people now if you couldn’t ever tell them anything again?” Answers included such basic things as where things were kept and how to get access to certain documents etc. And it is those basics that need to be sorted – from establishing relevant permissions to making an inventory of financial affairs.
“This is so important because, when somebody is in care, lucid moments can be quite rare,” he said. “It’s such a waste of that time, if you have to establish these things after somebody has lost some of their cognitive ability, compared to how easy it is to share that information before. And it’s not about making huge steps or putting vast amounts of money aside, it’s about making sure that basic information is shared when it’s a good time to share it.”
