Kathryn:       Hi everyone, this is episode one of season five and we have Roy McLoughlin with us and Peter Hamilton.  Hi both!

Peter:          Hi.

Roy:            Hi!

Kathryn:       Today we are starting off the year with a broad view of what is going on in the insurance market right now in Access to Insurance and how Peter is planning on bringing everything together.  This is the Practical Protection Podcast.  So, how are you both doing?

Peter:          Very good, yeah, thanks Kathryn and hi Roy.  So I’m in South London, the sky is blue, the birds are singing.  It’s all good here.

Roy:            I can’t hear any birds but I’m sure there are some to the west of London, but yes, good to see you both and happy new year.

Peter:          Yeah, if it’s not too late, happy new year to you all.

Kathryn:       Happy new year to you too.  I was going to say, I don’t have birds but I have a Fudge and every now and then he will come along and have a little bark at us maybe so I’ll maybe ask Lindsay to edit me out every now and then but no, it’s obviously really good to have you here Peter and for us to be going through things and just to sort of like start off with a little bit of a caveat to the listeners, I do have Covid at the moment – my voice every now and then is going a little bit croaky.  I am feeling much better than I did which is obviously a really positive thing but I will be leaving probably Peter and Roy to have a good moment together, to have a good natter and I’ll just pop in every now and then if I need something – that I think, “Ooh, I’ll just pop in with that!”

But to start off probably, I think it would be really good Peter – I know that you’ve always been involved in lots of things in our industry and now even more so you are here, there and everywhere.  And, you know, you are really involved in some key roles within the insurance world and beyond that as well so can you just kind of start off by letting everyone – sort of like, what are you up to right now?

Peter:          Thanks Kathryn, and firstly get well soon so sorry to hear about the Covid.  Maybe recovery by the end of the show, let’s hope.  So my role – I work for Zurich.  I have been in the industry for some 40 years and am enjoying it as much as ever so right now in terms of roles I have a few different areas that I’m kind of focussing on.  So historically I’d have been quite heavily involved in some of the commercial aspects – the marketing, the sales, the kind of business aspects of Zurich.  My role right now is to look at the way we interact with broader industry issues and so that means specifically for example, I work quite closely with the ABI.  I chair a couple of ABI committees that we might come onto in terms of retail protection and long-term care but also I’m spending a lot of time at the moment looking at – and I know this is an area of interest to yourselves, access to insurance and particularly for those with disabilities and one of the roles I picked up last year – following on from Johnny Timpson, was the role of insurance ambassador for access and disability which I guess some people will know a fair bit about but equally there may be quite a few listeners who’ve no idea about what that involves.

So it might help perhaps if I just give you a quick flavour as to what it is and I’m going to read just briefly from the Cabinet Office’s own website – so this post is one of 17 in different industries that reports through to the Disability Unit within the Cabinet Office and they say they’re, “Disability and access ambassadors are senior business leaders, they drive improvements in the accessibility and quality of services and facilities in their sector for disabled people, helping to ensure businesses are doing all they can to support disabled customers.  The roles are voluntary and served for up to three years.”  So that gives a sense as to what it’s about at a very high level.  If you look more broadly, there are ambassadors for airports, arts and culture, banking, buses, countryside and heritage, creative industries, energy, hospitality and more so 17 in total.

And the idea is these ambassadors meet periodically, share best practice and I guess I would see my role within the insurance industry as trying to bring together sometimes disparate parts to understand what the issues are particularly in terms of access for those with disabilities and that will include people like insurers obviously – and I’ll represent those in part – but also reinsurers, advisers and consumer groups.  So – so far as we can do anything at all, it’s to collaborate and bring together those different perspectives and look to optimise the outcomes at different stages of insurance journeys.

Kathryn:       I mean, it’s so important isn’t it?  I think – sorry, I was just going to say, you know, it’s that – obviously just a tad – just a little bit that you’re doing there Peter, you know, it’s just a little bit here, there and everywhere aren’t you, you know, but it’s that view of the industry, as you say, just getting everybody together; the insurers, the reinsurers, the advisers – it’s not a small task, you know, it’s a huge amount of networking – lots of information everywhere and I’m sorry Roy, because I know I just kind of interrupted you there a little bit.  You go ahead Roy.

Roy:            I was going to say, Peter, I mean it’s – that is a fascinating position to have because I think this comes down to a subject that we talked about over many a year which is the perception of our industry and how open it is to, you know, utopia as we can insure any person out there, no matter what their, you know, their background or situation is.  Do you think there’s still a reputational problem with the general public/the industry itself maybe?

Peter:          Yeah, absolutely and I think we can touch on that from a couple of perspectives.  If I look expressly and specifically at the disability and access point of view to begin with, it might be worth highlighting a few areas where I think there is work to be done here.  So in terms of what structure I’m looking to put around the work here, I’ve got five main areas I think all which will play ultimately to your kind of custom reputational piece, so I’ll list them first and then perhaps we can dive into a few of them depending on levels of specific interest in them.  So the first I think is underwriting and data, the way we use it, how transparent we are.  The second is insurance as a place to work – how can we make insurance as a career more accessible and more attractive for those with disabilities?  I think there’s work to be done on things like assistive technology.  So there’s huge amounts of increasing technological capabilities that can be brought to bear to help those with disabilities – most obviously online but elsewhere as well.

So I think there’s a lot of good stuff out there that is probably unknown to many.  So how can we share what’s available amongst the insurance and the advisory community?  I would want to build on the really good signposting work and I know, having listened to all of your podcasts historically, signposting will always be, you know, an important flavour and I think, you know, hats off to the two of you – to Johnny and to others who have made this almost just part of the insurance lexicon at the moment.  So, you know, there won’t be many conferences where it’s not mentioned but that’s ‘cos it’s important and I think it’s making a real difference.  And then then fifth would be the impacts of regulatory change, so how far do things like consumer duty, maybe the Government’s disability strategy and so on start to play out in terms of access to insurance?

So you’ve got five headings there and wrapped around all of those would be trying to understand and listen to the voice of lived experience because I think, you know, that’s one of the biggest challenges, I think, whether you’re a policy maker in Government or anywhere else, understanding what the genuine issues are from such a wide range of people with different disabilities which will affect them in different ways is really important but it’s hard and so, you know, how best we start to listen to people to understand the issues that they have in terms of the way they buy, live with and claim on insurance is important.

Roy:            I might focus on underwriting to start off with on that list.  I think there’s a sort of – Kathryn’s done an excellent podcast on this last year, there’s this dichotomy at the moment with mental health in that we are, you know, one of the positives with Covid if I may say that is that the stigma of mental health has thankfully disappeared and we are now encouraging people to not only talk openly about it but to seek advice, you know, through various mediums and one of those mediums is obviously via your GP or via, you know, your medical advisers.  And yet there seems to be a situation where we’re encouraging that and people are therefore talking to medical people about that and yet when we come to an application form, if the questions are asked in an incorrect way, it appears that some insurers have got a problem that – in that people have been too honest and gone and sought advice and we’re getting some decisions back saying, “Well actually we might have to rate or exclude mental illnesses because actually you’ve sought advice.”  Do you see the dichotomy there potentially?

Kathryn:       There’s something for me to quickly jump in with that if that’s okay so I had a really interesting one recently where I was wanting to look for some income protection for somebody and they were somebody who had taken part in Talking Therapies which is something that I kind of feel like – I know you see it on TV shows, I kind of think like in America Talking Therapies would just be something that everyone’s kind of doing all the time, you know, but there’s that thing of someone saying, “Right, you know what, just like I would go to a gym to look after my health, I’m going to have a talking sort of like thing with somebody and really chatting with them and making sure that everything’s okay,” and that in itself was kind of enough to immediately put on like a mental health exclusion for income protection and I kind of think well, you know, and obviously this is probably going way beyond, you know, sort of like the realm of this podcast in a sense but just following on from that, where I just thought that was quite interesting – that sort of experience that I’ve had where it was kind of a case of well – it just made me sit back and think, “Well actually, a gym is kind of seen as a reward insurance-wise but a talking therapy kind of isn’t.”

Roy:            Well anecdotes like that are the most important of all because we like real-life situations but anyway, we should give Peter a chance to answer our challenge.

Peter:          And obviously I need to put that immediate caveat in that I’m not an underwriter and so equally can’t speak for all companies.  I think they’re both really good challenges so mental health would be one of those issues that has come to the fore – most obviously in the last 18 months and I think if there was any sense that it didn’t to apply to everyone, that’s probably been dispelled by what we’ve collectively experienced.  So everyone has mental health of some kind or another and pretty much everyone will have, I think, experienced changes and issues in some way or another over the last 18 months.  I think from an industry perspective, there has been increased focus on that.  You will have seen the ABI do a lot of work in producing some new mental health standards in terms of the way questions are asked.  They’ve produced a new training module to help insurers and advisers and indeed anybody else understand some of the issues that need to be faced there.  But you’re right, there will still be a question as to whether some of the treatments that might be encouraged and beneficial could somehow impact adversely on your ability to get insurance.

So, within the groups that I talked about originally, the underwriting and the data one – that’s absolutely the kind of – and within that for each of these streams, I’m building smallish groups of people who can actively debate and then bring the issues back to insurers via the ABI most obviously but clearly the ABI doesn’t represent every single insurer.  So we will look to bring out these kind of particular challenges.  I think the debate is being had now in a way that it never has been before at the same level so I think there are opportunities and we are seeing some change there.  But we will want to recognise that – I think along with other – so mental health will be a really important part of the overall underwriting piece but I think there is a broader question as to how we ask questions, what data we get, what we use it for because I think there is a kind of wider insurance issue that we face going forward but we are getting more and more data on people.  We are measuring ourselves more and more whether it’s through Fitbits or trackers or anything else.  There is the possibility of crafting individual personalised propositions and products for people.  The real danger, I think, with this is if we’re not careful we end up excluding more people rather than including more people.

So insurance has obviously historically been based on the pooling of risk so the unfortunate few are supported by the many in the pool who don’t suffer the particular event but the more data you have about people, the more you can price individually for them but the more we run the risk of excluding some to the extent that, you know, ultimately you have a segment of one and the only people who can buy insurance are people who definitively know they don’t need it.  So I don’t think we’re there yet but we’re getting to a kind of tipping point where – and it’s accelerating because of the amount of data that we’ve got.  So I see one of the roles that I can I hope do is bring together people to debate this and say, you know, “Where do we end up?”  And ultimately it could well be a discussion as to how far commercially individual insurers can manage this and how far the State needs to pick up some of the areas that just cannot be sorted in a commercial sense.  So Flood Re is an example where ultimately, you know, the market wasn’t working and we had to have some kind of State intervention to stop that and create the ability for those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get insurance to get insurance.

So I’m not saying we’re at that point yet but I think these kind of broader underwriting and data questions will be ones that over the coming months we absolutely need to get out more and debate more openly because, you know, without that there is a danger we just carry on getting more and more data and refining more and more propositions for individuals but not helping the mass market as it were.

Roy:            Yeah and the obvious risk there is that if we don’t solve this issue or the wrong stories are told, people will be tempted not to be as honest as they should be on application forms because they might say, “Well I’ve gone to my doctor and had some beta-blockers prescribed but I’d better not say that because I won’t be able to get insured will I?”  And none of us want that because that goes back to the bad old days of non-disclosure which nearly crippled critical illness about 10 years ago of course.

Peter:          Yeah, no – again, that is exactly right.  The clear issue is we need to get, you know, as full and frank and open disclosures and possibly you two know more than most the importance of that but equally we don’t want to be frightening off people either having appropriate interventions which will help them because they think that might affect their insurance or not disclosing because that might affect their claim.

Roy:            Yeah.  I mean, a positive that you’ve referred to earlier is the very fact that we have a Government disability strategy – I guess some of us – Kathryn’s very young but people like myself and yourself, Peter, have been in the industry slightly longer –

Kathryn:       Thanks Roy!

Roy:            I guess might have had a slightly tainted view of some times the Government’s role, or view should I say, on insurance in that they were very ambivalent to it and it was like, you know, “You guys sort yourselves out, we don’t really want to get involved.”  And I think, you know, I often quote auto-enrolment as a great example of actually the Government becoming more involved but do you sense the very fact that there is a disability ambassador a different attitude from Government towards insurance?

Peter:          Yeah, from a couple of perspectives I would say.  So I mean the disability strategy itself doesn’t actually reflect materially on financial services, you know, so there’s a lot in there about transport, work, buildings and so on which might more obviously be seen as areas where, you know, access very visibly is difficult for people.  I think probably there is a sense within that that the regulation that we have as insurers and as advisers is already kind of telling us rightly to look at things like vulnerability most obviously and so there is a lot that we are doing already there.  I think more broadly, if you look at the Government’s approach – some of the green papers they’ve had on employment recently, so green papers on things like everyone’s health and the improvements that we’re seeing there.

For the first time, these papers are actively referencing insurance – most specifically there, group insurance.  So for a long time I think insurers have tried to evidence the case for the beneficial impact that insurance can have in getting people back to work, so the rehabilitative aspects of it, the engagement that early intervention can have that helps both the individual employee but also the employer and ultimately the insurer because there’s a focus now – in a way maybe 10 years or 15 years ago there wasn’t on getting people back to work.  The benefits of good health, the benefits of work itself on your kind of potentially physical but certainly mental wellbeing and that recognition in Government circles I think is greater than it ever has been.  So you wouldn’t have seen, I think, the same level of recognition in formal papers that insurance, and occupational health and the rehabilitative services that insurers provide in these contexts, have got a place to play.

Roy:            Right, so we are actually – we are opening doors is a maybe a better way of describing it but obviously those doors are – sometimes feel a little bit ajar and we need to sort of push them open with a bit more vigour.

Peter:          Yeah, I mean I do think, you know, Government in its broader sense will believe there is a role for insurers to play in quite a few sectors of society, you know, really important that, you know, we absolutely provide a kind of critical service to customers, to employers and to society at large by managing the risks that are just otherwise difficult to deal with.  If you looked at things like social care – so we’ve had a lot announced recently on changes being made to the way long-term care is managed.  There remain, you know, plenty of questions in terms of what’s happened.  I don’t think it’s fair to say that social care has been fixed in any sense at the moment.  I think if we’re looking for positives here, the fact that something’s been done at all is really good.  Yeah, because I’ve been involved in looking at this for more than 10 years and others longer where the idea is that insurers would kind of step up and provide ancillary products alongside existing State provision for care.  That’s almost impossible to do unless you’ve got people who’ve got a really clear idea as to what the State will provide, what they won’t provide, what I as an individual citizen am responsible for in terms of my own long-term care – so if I think I understand the State’s offer, then I’m more likely perhaps to top it up with something else.

But again there are, you know, ongoing discussions with ministers and civil service officials and more to say, “Where is the opportunity to provide that degree of partnership?”  You know, and it’s – we’re a little way away from being able to say definitively, “Because of the changes we’re seeing, there will be X number of new products coming out over the next couple of years,” but there’s no doubt that the more people understand that actually they’re going to have to pay for some of this themselves, the more likely it is that they’ll take some kind of action whereas to-date I would say the vast majority of people don’t think about going into care until they have to and, you know, if you ask someone to think about it in their 40s or 50s, you know, it’s pretty unlikely they will.  So that’s not to say we can’t do more to encourage that.  I mean, I think you know, Roy, you’re obviously getting involved heavily in, you know, pensions for companies and more.  I don’t think anyone is going to buy a new product that encourages you to save for long-term care ‘cos they just don’t want to think about it.

I think it may be possible to provide for example some additional incentives alongside existing vehicles like pensions, where you could say, “When you get to retirement, if it turns out you need care, you can draw down some of that money from that and pay it tax free, let’s say to a care provider of some kind.”  So, you know, there are absolutely opportunities to build on what’s there already but, you know, hard to imagine most people want to hypothecate their own savings for long-term care.

Roy:            Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.  I think what scared lots of us in the – on the wealth side of this was when the long-term care subject quite rightly, you know, was put on a platform and everyone was talking about it and several MPs kept referring to an insurance product and many of us were sort of scratching our heads going, “What insurance product?” because it doesn’t exist.  And, you know, if MPs don’t realise that there is no solution then God help the rest of us.  But –

Peter:          Yeah.  I think you need to be clear what problem would insurance be solving there?

Roy:            Yeah.

Peter:          You know, so I think there are different problems at different times in peoples’ lives.  So it could be – and there are products out there now that do help in this kind of environment aren’t there?  So, there are immediate needs annuities – so if I do need to go into care, if I want to kind of have a degree of certainty over being able to meet those fees I can buy, you know, a guaranteed annuity today but it presupposes that I’ve got some assets to be able to buy that annuity with.  But there is equity release so, you know, increasingly that’s likely to be quite a major part I think of the solution, you know, so people can buy it today.  Often that equity release tends to stop when someone goes into care so there may be some more product development that’s required there but, you know, there are for now at least for a lot of people who have housing equity that could be used to help with that care – and there are some products, you know, which have kind of care rider benefits from an insurance perspective.

What other products might you imagine?  What are the problems you might solve?  I mean, I guess if anything we will have had a greater sense going forward that we don’t want to go into care homes and that’s, you know, a huge generalisation but you kind of look over the last 18 months and care homes have been seen as a kind of a petri dish for infection and, you know, if you didn’t want to go in one before, I suspect that will have been reinforced by what we’ve seen, particularly in the early impacts of, you know, disease going through care homes.  But products that could help someone stay safely in their home for longer and that could be with some kind of technological safeguarding through sensors and so on, you could imagine a kind of package of products that might help with the financing of that which might help with some kind of, you know, aimed perhaps that the children of parents who are going into care.  You know, so how are they going to look after them in care?  How can they keep them safely in their home for longer?  Those are the sorts of challenges I think insurers have to look at – that’s not to say there are easy solutions but again I would believe there would be an expectation with a degree of partnership wherever possible there.

Roy:            Yeah and I would say that I think that it’s very important that the insurance industry and the wealth management industry come together here because – and I think you’ve exemplified it very well, the solution transcends both of those industries for me because there’s got to be a safer culture as part of that solution and that’s something that we need to do but let’s move on.  There’s so many subjects to talk to you about.  Obviously need to talk to you about your ABI work.  Now, the ABI – I think if we are being honest was – some advisers are slightly cynical about the ABI over the years.  I think – I’m trying to be as polite as possible.  But listen, one of the great things about you Peter, is that you are a bridge builder and with very few rivals.  Are you conscious that there’s sometimes a bit of a silo between the ABI and the advisory community?

Peter:          Yeah, I’ve certainly heard that and I understand where it comes from.  I don’t think there should be.  I think one of the things I would observe over the last 18 months again has been in a world where collaboration has perhaps been less apparent as individual countries have decided, “We’re going to horde the vaccines to ourselves,” you know, and it’s America first or whatever it might be, I think actually with our own industry, we have seen more collaboration than I’ve ever seen before and that’s within and across advisers, insurers, reinsurers and more.  I think the ABI absolutely has a part to play here.  Again, it doesn’t represent every single company.  It can’t mandate lots and lots of stuff to people who aren’t members of it but I think does some really good things and at one level, the ABI is only as good as its members so it’s incumbent I think on insurers to play a really active part in doing that.  If that means reaching out more overtly to other stakeholders, we should be doing that.  I think – again, if I look back over the last 18 months or so, one of the things we do – or I do personally simply because I chair one of the committees there is meet with Alan the – Alan, you’ll know well, Kathryn!

Kathryn:       I do, I do!

Peter:          The PDG chairman –

Roy:            Is there a conflict on this podcast?

Peter:          Yes!  But I think there again, the PDG won’t represent every single adviser or –

Roy:            Absolutely.

Peter:          There’s distribution firms out there but I think that’s just an example of kind of more engagement than we’ll have had historically collectively, just sharing what some of these issues are.  So yeah, if I can do one thing, I would hope it’s to continue that bridge building across different communities within our sector.

Roy:            Yeah, and Peter, you know, I was playing a little bit devil’s advocate.  You know me well but, you know, I wanted to give our listeners a chance to listen to your answer which I’d anticipated and I think that the adviser community equally would say that the collaboration from our point of view has equally been working as well because I think, let’s face it, all of us think that the end product – the end result is looking after consumers and you have exactly the same, you know, desires for us to cover more people in the UK and that’s – let’s face it, what we’re doing in protection.  So I think if we got the same end result, we should be maybe coming at slightly different angles but the collaborative approach is the way of doing it and – which brings me very nicely onto the – probably the most spoken about topics in the last month or so – electronic GPRs.  Now I know you guys at the ABI are doing some work on this but how do you see the situation at the moment?

Peter:          I think access to medical information is the biggest issue we have, purely from a business perspective.  It’s the grit in the machine, it’s hard for customers, it’s hard for advisers, it’s hard for insurers and of course it’s exacerbated by the current environment that we’re in.  So, you know, there’s no doubt that medical professionals and surgeries are under huge pressure.  We had notifications going out at the end of last year saying they expected everyone just to focus on boosters and, you know, almost stop anything else that isn’t being directed to greater take-up there so you can understand entirely why there is pressure and forms from insurance companies for whatever reason might not be returned as quickly as possible.  But it’s causing us pain everywhere.

I mean, I got involved in a radio interview earlier this week from, you know, basically – and it wasn’t one of our cases and it wouldn’t be appropriate to talk about who’s case it was but basically the customer had waited six months for a claim to be paid because they couldn’t get hold of the medical information.  So it’s hurting, I think, at every area.  It’s hurting at the underwriting level where, you know, we can wait.  It’s hurting at claim stage where we might still need information.  I think short-term there has been some good work in terms of electronic GPRs which absolutely make sense for our perspective because we get it back quicker.  From the customer’s perspective, hopefully they get a decision more quickly and really from doctors as well because, you know, it ought to help them from a data protection perspective.  There will still be some concerns that they will have almost however they are transmitting highly personal, sensitive information.

What we have seen, I would say as an industry and I think these are our Zurich figures but they’re echoed by a number of people who do use these, is that pre-pandemic we probably had take-up from doctors of about 25%.  It’s nearer 40+% now so that’s, you know, a big swing in the right direction which we have to sustain and build on to get more people to use them because there is no doubt they come back quicker.  You know, we’ve got evidence that shows that that’s the case.  I think in a way we should continue to focus on that because any enhancements and progress we can make here will be the right thing to do.  Going forward – and this will be, you know, one of the ABI’s own priorities, is it’s working with the NHS because the NHS of course themselves are looking at digitising, if only I could say that, patient records and that has to be the longer term ideal where we’re not dependent on going to people who have got other priorities, like medical professionals, to get information from them.

If we can get to a stage where customers themselves can – with informed consent give us access to their records, you know, you could foresee – we could just revolutionise the difficulties that we have today.  I think, you know, that’s certainly on the NHS agenda, you know, but there are huge associated data protection concerns with what is very sensitive information.  So I think the answer is we’ll continue to try and grow that 40% to 50%, 60% and more.  Clearly, if we can avoid asking for a GPR in the first place that’s even better because it doesn’t get in the way but where we will require medical information in the longer term, I think the best answer is to be able to get that informed consent to access directly from the patient then just cut out the middle man.

Kathryn:       It would be so much better.  I was going to say, obviously as someone who helps people that do often need GP reports, I mean, in terms of like the iGPRs, they are so much better, you know, not having to decipher a GP’s handwriting is always obviously a very good thing.  The same with anybody, you know, obviously all of us – our handwriting isn’t necessarily the best when we’re rushing something and undoubtedly there are obviously people, you know, GPs in a sense shouldn’t be completing these kinds of reports, you know, they should be doing what they’re good at.  As with anything in any organisation, you should do what you’re good at in a sense which is they’re there to help people but obviously in terms of what we need, they do need to deal with it.  So these reports are so important and I think, you know, when you were saying about the data protection side of things there, we’re involved in a case at the moment where there’s been a huge, huge data breach – not obviously – luckily, touch wood, it’s not from ourselves.  There’s been a huge data breach from the GP surgery in that there’s somebody that we’ve been supporting with a medical condition.  As with anything it’s, you know, anybody’s data is very important and very sensitive to this person.  It is a very, very sensitive situation that they are involved with and unfortunately the GP surgery has posted out the GP report to someone random within the community –

Peter:          Wow.

Kathryn:       Rather than – yeah, it’s a very, very big breach.  And that could have been solved so easily by them having this software installed, that would be a click of a button, that would have just done this straight away.  Obviously, it’s going to streamline things so much.  And I think, you know, ultimately as well, you know, I am very familiar with looking at GP reports and not every adviser is, so anything we can do to make it easy for an adviser to try and – not every adviser in the world is going to want to see GP reports and, you know, maybe not every adviser in the world should see them.  But, if you have someone who is going through GP reports, the amount of times that, you know, I’ve said this plenty of times before, the amount of times you end up having to get these corrected because there’s incorrect information in them or you have a very – you’ve got two things, you either – they’re either going to come back and say what you want them to say which is wonderful, they’re going to come back and something’s incorrect on there and you have to get it corrected, or you have the really, really difficult position as an adviser where something comes up in the medical report and it’s accurate and that person is not aware in full about their health.

And you’re then in a very awkward situation where you’re trying to speak to somebody and explain what’s happened and then they’re having kind of like a bit of a self-realisation thing that’s going on, that actually, in that situation where we are talking about, that would probably be that there’s – their health is not as good as they thought it was and it’s awful.

Peter:          Yeah.  No, all really good points and I think one of the challenges to that kind of patient consent piece will be, you know, how far the medical profession are comfortable that there is full access to that because, you know, legitimately there may be reasons why they haven’t explained maybe everything there because they think it’s the right thing to be doing for that patient.  And of course, unfettered access to everything that’s there in the wrong hands, you know, whether it’s the patient’s or indeed ours or anybody else’s could be dangerous.  So, you know, it’s not a simple thing, it won’t be this year, I don’t know when it will be, I do know that, you know, it’s being actively considered right now so, you know, you can see the benefits that will come from it while being aware of some of the challenges in getting there.

Roy:            Peter, I’d like to take you off to a different subject if we may, just conscious of time here, the wealth management world is totally dominated by ESG at the moment and the old ethical investment and quite rightly many wealth managers are moving towards that –

Kathryn:       I’m going to jump in Roy – can you – sorry Roy, can you explain your acronym for people who aren’t from the investment wealth –

Roy:            Sorry, Environmental Social and Governance and basically what that means is that the way you invest your monies should be looked at closer and many people – particularly tend to be younger people, are very worried about people are investing and, you know, are investing in more ethical areas – areas that have impact and there’s just a very sort of political – with a small p – movement towards that in the wealth management world.  Just interested to hear and I know Zurich have been doing some work on this – where do you think the protection world lies with sustainability issues?

Peter:          Yeah, great question.  I think it kind of goes back to some of the discussion we had earlier on.  So if I look at some of the ABI priorities, this year trust is, you know, right up there.  Partly because it’s been hurt I would say over the last 18 months, you know, with things like business interruption claims and so on and I don’t know that customers always necessarily draw much of a distinction between different branches of insurance.  But the – to your earlier point, the need to ensure that we so far as we can possibly do so, you know, we build and earn trust in the industry is really important.  And I think if I look at how do you do that? Sustainability, I think, a really important part of it.  So I think there are different levels and layers to trust and how as an industry we can do it.  I think some fantastic work is being done at individual adviser levels, you know, and you’re both really good role models here and there are others out there who are using social media and more to build trust with their own consumers.  And I think, you know, every time I see new research, customers actually say, “I trust my own adviser, you know, it’s all the others I –”  So there are some really good advisory firms out there doing fantastic work with individual companies.

I think at an insurance level, you know, we come up against the myth of that we don’t pay claims and, you know, Zurich and others, we do as much as we can to rebut that through both some figures, which you could argue – do they help or not?  I think they can be used appropriately but also the stories to say, you know, “Look what a difference we’ve made to people’s lives.”  I think one of the dangers of focussing a lot on claims is that largely lots of consumers aren’t necessarily interested in it until it directly affects them.  So there is a danger we are talking to ourselves when we publish some of this stuff.  I think the issue that really affects consumers – and you start to see it in every bit of research now, is things like the environment and sustainability.  And whether you’re a potential employee or a potential customer, you know, there’s any amount of research now that says, “You will have your – you will make decisions based on your perception of those companies and their sustainability goals.”

So some research out just today – BUPA have produced a, you know, it’s available I think on the Cover website.  Some really interesting observations there just in terms of the impact that, you know, particularly but not exclusively younger customers, will have, when they look at someone’s credentials – so we will determine whether or not they place business or want to work for someone whose values they might see accord with their own.  So I think how we kind of look at the sustainability issue and get that message across but actually insurers who historically might have been seen as the bad guys, you know, and so when people think of sustainability they probably have an image of someone dripping green paint over Lloyds of London, you know, in protest, the reality which we have to get across, you know, at this high level, so if you’ve got different levels of trust building from individual companies as an industry, the work we can do on sustainability is massive.

So at an industry level there is a requirement for something like £2.7 trillion of investment between now and 2050 to get to net zero.  The insurance industry alone, with the funds that we manage through premiums that we hold on behalf of customers could, with some changes to some of the solvency requirements and the way we invest capital, account for a third of that.  So, there’s a huge, huge opportunity to be the good guys here, to invest in sustainable futures and help that transition between now and then.  At individual company levels – and some of the things that we do, now we’ve done our own research that shows that customers are really happy to have, you know, as long as it’s explained to them, things like recycled parts.  They don’t have to have everything new now.  I saw at an ABI Conference, a lady called Penny James who’s CEO of Direct Line, talk about the fact that she spends 25% of her time on sustainability.  And within that, you know, they look at all their processes, things like their supply chains, who does what for them.  They have people looking at – for example they found the biggest contributor to net emissions was the way that repair cars had their paint dried when you’re repainting.  So, you know, they just have been spending a lot of time looking at that process, they are literally paying people to watch paint dry, to get a better process for that.

So customers and employees will see a company’s credentials as it were, in terms of sustainability, increasingly as important.  And I think that’s important for us as insurers.  Actually, I think it’s important for advisory firms as well, you know.  Because customers going to them.  We did a kind of small survey amongst, you know, some advisory firms from a meeting that we hosted a little while back and actually only about 15% of the firms and these were, you know, some big firms, had any reference whatsoever to sustainability.  And that’s not to say each individual firm is going to be changing the world but each individual firm can have policies on things like waste management and on purchasing.  So for example at Zurich, we outsource a lot of our purchasing for a company called Wild Hearts which is – so you can easily get to, you know, ethical sourcing, through companies who just focus directly on this, not by having to scour the internet yourself for every opportunity but because there are companies there who will help you do this.

So all of us whether, you know, individually or as a firm or as an industry, can make a difference.  And I think in terms of reputation, one of the biggest opportunities for us to be the good guys going forward, is to be seen to be acting in a way that is positive or something that people care passionately about.  And there’s no doubt, you know, while it might be seen as predominantly young today in terms of the activist, that’s something that I think goes across the generations, you know?  So, what can you do?  Individual people within your firms, you know, they will be passionate about this.  You know, there is material out there, there are sources out there.  Find the advocates in your own firms to do this, you know, get an action list of what you’re going to do.  How are you going to promote it to your own customers?  Not in an overtly commercial way but just to give reassurance that these are things that matter because it matters to customers.

Roy:            Fabulous.  Peter, we’re running out of time.  We couldn’t let you go without you – sounds like the Two Ronnies sketch that, doesn’t it – we couldn’t let you go without talking to – I’ll say a wise young scribe, about his 40 years in this wonderful industry and I guess – I guess, changes that you’ve seen for the good, maybe some for the bad.  I’m hoping they’re mostly for the good but let’s take you back to the Peter Hamilton of 1970 whenever it was and to now –

Peter:          1970?  Yeah, I mean I guess 40 years on and it is 40 years on, plus –

Roy:            1982, sorry, my apologies.

Peter:          1982, yeah.  So it’s a long time in the industry and the fact that I’m still dong it and loving it and have no intentions of retiring unless someone kind of forcibly tells me I’ve got to do that, you know, for the foreseeable future.  I think it’s testament to what we do, collectively.  So there have been changes but, you know, of all the industries I could have worked in, I think that’s one of those that came in by accident, as we all kind of find.  And I think one of the challenges is, how do we make it more overtly a place that people want to work?  So I have seen changes in terms of, you know, distribution – I think we’ve got specialist firms and protection which is fantastic because when I started out there were – the number of advisers talking about protection was measured in the hundreds of thousands, you know.  It’s measured – what now, in terms of, you know, the actual people who are licensed, is probably 15,000 so the number of people talking regularly is 5,000.  So the fact that we are still selling the volumes that we do – the amount of protection we do is testament to firms like your own who specialise and are making up for the fact that the direct sales forces – the home service sales forces, the bank sales forces, have all disappeared.

So that’s one of the biggest seismic changes, you know, the fact that we’ve got more specialism, fewer advisers but greater focus.  But I do think we need to do more to make it an industry that everyone wants to join.  And it can be done.  You know, at the risk of promoting Zurich, permit me the, you know, this last plug –

Kathryn:       Yes.

Peter:          But I mean this week – this last week, Glassdoor, which is a kind of big employer survey, talked about – they have some two million firms that they have on their books and they kind of rate them depending on, you know, “Is it a good place to work or not?”  So, this week, Zurich came in at number 16 out of the top 50.  So, you know, two places ahead of Google.  So – and I think actually, the only insurer in here – but some of those companies are new companies, you know, who have only been going three or four or five years.  Others are, you know, big, huge companies.  But insurance can be a good place to work.  And I think if you focus on the kind of societal good that we do and you make that kind of purpose really apparent to the people who work with you and you listen to them and you give them choice, you can have an employer the size of, you know, someone like a Zurich, that is seen as just a great place to work.  So instead of having the tired, “I fell into insurance,” that I’m guilty of, you know, we want to get to a stage where people see it’s a great place to work and they can see that we make a difference to society and they want to be part of it.

Kathryn:       I think that’s quite a nice thing going on from there as well in terms of, you know, the work that we do in terms of access to insurance, it’s – when we’re doing that and we’re focussing upon trying to really see people and not see conditions and see what people can do rather than focussing on what people can’t do, it doesn’t just isolate it to, “Oh this is an underwriting decision,” or, “This is what policies are available.”  It inherently influences everything that we are doing.  And also in terms of recruitment in the industry and what we want to do and I know that you are involved with GAIN, which is doing and that’s obviously working to do with making the insurance world far more open in terms of neurodiversity as well, which is incredibly important.

Peter:          Yeah, we may not have much time but yeah and I would just like to touch on that briefly because I think that one of those five strands I outlined at the top of the meeting was how to make insurance a better and more accessible place and I think GAIN is a good example of, you know, an insurance network that, you know, within the last few weeks has published, you know, a fantastic guide on recruitment.  You know, so how do you get the benefits of divergent thinking into an organisation where our historic processes may just not have been particularly appropriate for someone who just thinks in a different way?  But actually insurance – of all the industries, where you’re looking for patterns and so on, is absolutely the right kind of industry for someone who might be autistic, who thinks in a different way but can bring very real and different benefits but, you know, historically our processes just haven’t made it easy either for that person to get in through the door in the first place or necessarily to stay there.  And I think, you know, our industry does so much good in different ways.

And maybe, finish on just a brief story this week and it’s fresh in my mind because it’s so strange in a way.  I am joining on a voluntary basis the Insurance United Against Dementia Board next week so that’s, you know, another important area where historically I would say that group has been driven by people in the general insurance business so they’re looking for some wider representation from the life business.  So in fact myself and Rose St Louis, who you’ll know, are both joining that next week.  We’ll go for our first meeting.  And just two incidents this week – because one of the things I’m acutely aware of is I don’t know enough.  So every day is a learning day as it were.  So two things that almost purely by coincidence have made me kind of focus on the importance of it.  One is, you know; I was listening to the radio and there was a book that’s just come out by a lady who’s got dementia herself, had it 10 years ago and people say, “Well, how can you write a book?” you know?  And it’s just explaining and undoing some of the myths that we might have in terms of how dementia can affect people in different ways.  So, a really powerful insight into what it means to have dementia and how it can affect you.

And the other one is just this strange personal experience and it was Tuesday night.  Our doorbell went at 1.30 at night and it was very insistent. I suddenly found myself waking up out of this deep sleep.  I went down to the door and there was a little old lady, you know, she was 82 or so and it took a while to work out what she was there – but she was clearly very confused, you know.  And as it, you know, fairly rapidly transpired, she’s got dementia.  So, you know, she came in, sat her down and tried to piece together what had happened to her or why she was on our doorstep or any other doorstep at 1.30.  Got through to police who got through to the relatives who had notified her as missing in the afternoon.  And basically, she’d lived in North London – Wood Green.  I live in South London and she had found herself down at our house and bizarrely just knocked on our door.  So had an hour and a half just talking to her, you know, so far as you can and looking to piece together her journey today which was very difficult – her life – but as a lesson on the impact, it was just very, very immediate.

And so eventually, an hour and a half later the, you know, relieved children came to pick her up because they had no idea and I guess no one will ever know quite how she ended up from North London to South London –

Roy:            Wow.

Peter:          The journey she took, whether it was buses, whether it was trains.  But the kind of coincidence for me, you know, just because I’ve got this meeting next week, it’s almost as if someone up there was looking down and saying, you know, we need to expose him to what’s happening in the real world here.  So there was my hour and a half, you know, induction session as it were as to how dementia can affect people.

Kathryn:       As I say, lucky that she got you.

Roy:            Insurance personality extraordinaire and guardian angel!

Kathryn:       Yeah!

Roy:            Another title for you.

Kathryn:       Absolutely!  Very lucky that she was on your doorstep and that you’re obviously so kind and able to do exactly in a sense what you need to do to keep her calm because obviously it can be very, very scary for somebody in that situation.

Peter:          Yeah, I mean interestingly, you know, she wasn’t scared at all, just very, very confused and, you know, we’d have had no idea how she’d reached our door as opposed to any others.  Because it’s not like we’re next to a bus stop or a train station, you know, she’s just obviously wandered round but was unable to articulate exactly how she ended up there.

Kathryn:       Right.

Peter:          But, you know, interesting.

Kathryn:       Oh bless her.  I think a good way to sort of like end the podcast nicely would be just like to sort of like say really sort of like, some really clear wishes, or specific wish that you hope for this next year, Peter.

Peter:          So if we can make progress on the access to the GP records that we talked about, that would be really important to me.  If we could make any progress on making insurance a place that people want to work as opposed to fall into, that would be good, build on the collaboration we’ve seen and just have a better 2022.  And I guess finally, for Jesse Lingard to sign for West Ham.

Kathryn:       Oh!  Almost – almost the entire way through without football!  And I was going to say, I wouldn’t have been any the wiser, if you hadn’t finished it off with West Ham, that’s sort of like the best of my knowledge, I was thinking, “Who’s Jesse?” and then it dawned on me, I was like, “Oh, okay, football, yes!” I’m sure I will get –

Roy:            I think you’ve got more chance of Jesse James signing for West Ham!

Peter:          I’ll take him!  Need a striker!

Kathryn:       I am lost!  I’ve followed everything so far but you’ve lost me on the football but thank you so much everybody for listening and thank you so much for joining us, Peter.  It’s been really good having your insight.

Peter:          I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity, thank you.

Kathryn:       Fantastic!  So, I have a little bit of something interesting and fun to talk to you and tell you all about, obviously, is that we are having a Mental Health and Insurance Awareness Week and it’s starting on the 31^st of January.  And so every day, Monday to Thursday, we are – sorry, my voice is going a little bit now – so every day, Monday to Thursday, there is going to be a podcast coming out.  They’re probably going to be about 30 minutes-ish, so a little bit shorter than our usual ones.  I’ve been very strict with myself not to natter too much during them.  But this is all to do with the work that I’ve been doing with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in their mental health working groups, so there’s been this big – I’ve put together this big kind of like mental health mind map in terms of insurance and where mental health will kind of come in, where it needs to be considered.  And each day, we’re going to be taking a different area to focus on that.  So we’ve got some fantastic guests, some experts from within our industry and also outside of our industry too.

And then on the Friday, there is going to be a live webinar as well, where people can register and come and quiz people from different areas of the industry and just ask those questions that you’ve been wanting to know all the time.  And I’m really hopeful that we’ll get some nice sort of like attendance from obviously people within the industry but also hopefully some mental health charities as well that I know have spotted what we are up to.  It’s going to start off, as I say – sort of we’re starting off kind of like, the triggers for what makes us want insurance, going through to how we get insurance, the insurances that are available and why certain decisions are made and then through to the claims side of things and those support services that people can access even if they aren’t making a claim.

As always, if you would like a reminder of the next episode, just drop us a message on social media or visit the website, practical-protection.co.uk and again, as every episode is structured CPD through to our – well thanks to our sponsors, the Octo Members; please do visit either Octo Members to log your CPD or go on the website and you will get that through to you too.  So again, thank you very much and lovely to see you both again after the New Years.

Peter:          Good to see you both, thanks again.

Roy:            Thanks guys, see you soon.