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Roger Edwards, Bright Grey Managing Director, talks protection

Lending a Helping Hand

Bright Grey and RED ARC have been working together for nearly a decade with the aim of delivering more than financial support – essential as that is – to Bright Grey menu plan holders.

The Helping Hand service aims to give customers and their families access to all the support and advice they need at a difficult time in their lives and, as far as possible, to give them peace of mind. It is also designed to help people get the most from the NHS and find other sources of appropriate therapies and services.

In this Q&A session, Director of Nursing Services Jan Dryden and Personal Nurse Adviser Caroline Love, talk about the Helping Hand service.

Q: Tell us about the Helping Hand service in broad terms?

Jan: “Our role is to support claimants over the telephone when they have been diagnosed with a serious, critical or terminal illness. The nurses aim to develop a rapport with the patients, and these relationships can last for months or even years.

“Each patient has their own Personal Nurse Adviser. When they phone, they are confident that their nurse knows about them and their case. Apart from anything else, it means they do not need to go over everything again and again every time when we speak.”

Caroline: “Sometimes, it is a matter of giving someone the confidence to ask the right questions. Sometimes they will see a consultant and afterwards they will say ‘I wish I asked this or I asked that’. A lot of our work is about listening to a patient’s needs and giving them the confidence or the support to take control of what they are going through.”

Jan: “Every case is different. We identify what is most important to that patient. It may be that they have been diagnosed with cancer but that their greatest concern is something entirely different, maybe the fact that they are a carer for an elderly relative, or they don’t want to let colleagues down by taking time off work.”

Q: What is the experience when you (Helping Hand) ring someone for the first time?

Caroline: “Sometimes people are a bit hesitant talking to us. We make the first contact, we explain what we do. We explain the details of our service and ask if they want to talk through things at that time or at a later time. People usually relax; sometimes they tell you the story of their illness and ask a lot of questions. Occasionally, people don’t want to talk, in which case we give them as much information as possible and then we write to them. Our letter sets out who we are, gives details of the service, and suggests that we can talk to them maybe a week or so later, so they know who we are and where we are. We also give details of our website so that they can check us out!”

Q: Are there any time constraints?

Caroline: “No, there are no time constraints. We have the time to listen. It doesn’t matter if a phone call is ten or twenty minutes long or an hour, we have got the time to spend.”

Jan: “We are able to give advice, information, emotional support and most importantly, a listening ear. Often people find that hospital appointments are rushed and they still have lots of questions and anxieties when they get home.”

Q: What happens where someone needs specialist support?

Caroline: “Most of us are general nurses with many years of experience. We also have specialist nurses, who can provide support. If somebody has had a stroke for example, we can organise for them to speak to our specialist nurse who can talk in more depth about their condition and treatment and what is available. We have specialist nurses across a range of conditions. We also have a mental health nurse who can support people.

“It can be a difficult time.  We can also provide and fund particular therapies, for example, hyperbaric-oxygen may help someone with multiple-sclerosis. If a second opinion is needed, we can source it, either through the NHS or the private sector.”

Q: Can you give some more examples of the specific help you give?

Jan: “The really great thing is that we are able to organise specific help that is appropriate to that particular patient and situation. We have sourced some really useful items for patients. For example, we were able to provide a specialist wig for a lady who had lost her hair following treatment for cancer; we also organised a visit to the hair loss clinic for her. This patient had been feeling very low and said that this help had transformed how she was feeling and given her confidence to cope with whatever came next.

“We have provided appropriate exercise and therapy equipment for patients too. We have also organised local hypnotherapy to help stop smoking following a heart attack, with positive results.”

Q: What help do you give to relatives?

Jan: “Often people struggle following the death of their family member and we can support them emotionally, provide bereavement counselling or maybe organise complementary therapies. Having an aromatherapy massage can be liberating, especially if no-one has laid hands on them since the loss of their spouse.”

Caroline: “Our first concern is the person who has the illness. Take for example, a young mum diagnosed with terminal cancer. I would be able to tell her about making a memory box and getting support for the children. But then we can be there for her partner and her children. It obviously has a knock on effect on the whole family, so we are able to offer advice and support and information to them as well.”

Q: If someone needs extra services, that you don’t provide, what is your role?

Caroline: “Unless you know how and where to look, you won’t necessarily find the right information. We find out what services are available. We might make some phone calls. Obviously, we wouldn’t divulge any patient details, unless the patient allows us to. We would explain that we are nurses and see what is available. To take a recent example, we looked at the rehabilitation services available to a stroke patient on discharge from hospital and contacted social services. That is something proactive we can do to help people recover to the best of their ability. We also give people information on charities such as the Stroke Association and Different Strokes.”

Q: What if the prognosis is not so good?

Caroline: “If someone is terminally ill, we will support them to the end. We hope to give people the confidence to say when they see the consultant ‘I am on medication but it is not working for me, I am suffering at the moment is there something else that could be done to help me with the pain?’  We may provide complementary therapy to give people a better quality of life. It may not change their condition, but it may make things more comfortable.”

Q: What sort of therapies are popular?

Caroline: “There are many therapies and the ones that we provide are considered mainstream these days, they are used in hospitals and hospices. Reflexology is very popular because it is not too intrusive. We can also provide massage if appropriate, but it can be a bit too intense for some conditions. Acupuncture can be beneficial; any therapy we think is relevant we will look into. We will ensure that the therapists are appropriately qualified and insured.”

Q: How do you help people with finding a care home?

Caroline: “We can help patients who are searching for a care home. We don’t choose the care home, but we would look for some in their area, having talked about what they are looking for and what their needs are. I remember a gentleman originally from India who had forgotten his English because of his condition. We were able to phone around and find places where they spoke his language. His wife and son could then go and look at the homes. It takes a lot of the legwork out of things. We go on what the patient or carer has told us. They were delighted.

“We phone around, and without mentioning names ask ‘could you support someone with this condition?’ We can send that information and the family and person can make the choice.”

Q: What feedback do you get?

Jan: “The team of nurses find great satisfaction in their work, and we know that we are appreciated because of the feedback. It’s lovely when someone sends us a photo of their new grandchild, or a book that they think we might like.”

Caroline: “When speaking to patients or family members, they are grateful for the time we have spent and for how we have made their life more comfortable. We receive letters and cards. We also carry out an annual patient survey. The feedback is really good. It is great to know we are helping and making things better. We can give them the support and help they need to make the best of what is a bad situation. They know we are there for them and will help them as much as we can.”

Jan Dryden is Director of Nursing at RED ARC. Prior to this she worked in many areas including midwifery and elderly care, orthapaedics and community nursing. Jan has worked for RED ARC since its inception in 1997.

Caroline Love is Personal Nurse Adviser at RED ARC. Having worked in nursing homes for more than 20 years, Caroline felt that the time was right for a new challenge and joined RED ARC in 2009. Her specialist interests are elderly care, MS, Parkinson’s disease and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Over to you: What do you think of services such as Helping Hand?  Do you think they add value to a protection product?

photo credit: Mandajuice via photopin cc

Roger Edwards 1 May 2013

Why the Consumer Insurance Act is good news for everyone

By Ian Smart, head of product development & technical support, Bright Grey & Scottish Provident

In amongst all the regulatory and legislative changes at the beginning of the year, you may have missed the implementation of this piece of legislation which came into force on 6 April.

The Consumer Insurance Act (Disclosure and Representations) 2012, introduced rules which mean that insurers now have to ask the specific questions they want answers to, in order to assess the risk. Previous legislation placed the onus on the consumer to volunteer information they thought would be relevant to the insurer.

Most would say this change in legislation is long overdue. It gives greater protection to the consumer and insurers will not be able to turn down a claim unless the consumer deliberately, recklessly or carelessly gave incorrect or incomplete information. So what might the consequences of this change in legislation be?

You might think it will mean even longer application forms for people to complete. Or it could be another excuse for insurers to increase their prices as they’ll be forced to pay more claims.  If you do, then I’m afraid I would have to disagree.

Most insurers actually welcome the change in legislation as it puts into statute and adds clarity to pretty much what they’ve been doing for a number of years. That is to try and address consumer perception that they never pay out.  The ABI has for many years provided guidance on the design of application forms which calls for clear questions that the insurer would commonly find to be relevant to the risk.  It has also, more recently, produced a code of practice on managing claims where there is non-disclosure.  Both of these have helped to improve claims paid statistics for protection plans.

The legislation takes an almost identical stance to that already adopted by ABI members, so I would not expect to see any major changes in the protection world.  Providers already ask specific questions to gather as much relevant information as possible from the client. I therefore don’t see any real need for application forms to be made any longer.  Given that claims paid are generally between 95% and 97% for death claims and critical illness claims are not far behind, it’s unlikely that there will be any significant impact on the number of claims paid or on prices either.  The only likely changes are subtle changes to the wording on application forms and in key features and policy terms and conditions documents. This is to emphasise the consequences of not answering the questions asked by the insurer carefully and completely.  It really is therefore a case of business as usual.

The thoughts and opinions in the guest blogs belong to the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Roger Edwards or Bright Grey / Scottish Provident.

Over to you: What are your views on the Consumer Insurance Act 2012?

Photo credit: SalFalko via photopin cc

Roger Edwards 22 April 2013

Why we’re giving away up to £200 million of free critical illness cover

I can hardly believe it. Bright Grey is 10 years old! To celebrate and thank our supporters, we’re giving away up to £200 million of free critical illness cover for one year*.

We’re also offering an Uncovered subscriber the chance to help toast our birthday with a bottle of Glenmorangie 10 year old malt whisky.

Please take a couple of minutes to watch this short video where I reflect on why Bright Grey was set up and our ambitions for the future.

*All the information around the giveaway can be found at www.brightadviser.co.uk/10

Over to you: I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment on this blog post, or use the contact page to get in touch. 

Roger Edwards 15 April 2013

How advisers can use the internet to boost business

In this short video, I talk to Money Management’s Aimee Steen about how advisers can use the internet to boost their business leads, and how the protection industry can keep momentum following the sales surge at the end of 2012.

Click HERE to watch the video

Over to you: Do you use social media as part of your overall marketing strategy? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Roger Edwards 27 March 2013

5 reasons why people should have protection insurance

We ended last year on a high. After a major push to get women to buy protection before the gender directive kicked in, the results spoke for themselves. Providers reported a massive increase in sales at the start of this year and the industry received a much needed boost.

But we’re now working in an RDR world and on top of the usual challenges for selling our products, we have increasing prices and an added degree of unpredictability as products outside of protection move from commission to fees. One thing will remain the same and that’s that the need for protection is as great as ever.

They may be obvious. They may have been repeated so many times. But here are 5 reasons why people should have protection insurance:

1. More than 1 in 3 people in the UK will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. Around 146,000 people have a heart attack every year and it is estimated that nearly 1.2 million people in the UK have suffered a stroke. No one knows what the future holds health wise so there is always a need to have the right insurance in place. Life cover, critical illness insurance and income protection should be priorities.

2. While many people understand the importance of taking out life insurance to cover a mortgage in the event of their death, the mortgage isn’t the only payment that needs to be made each month. Utility bills, council tax and travel costs are just some of the other everyday expenses. So even if there’s sufficient life insurance to pay off the mortgage, have your clients thought about how they would pay for all those additional costs?

3. Many people will feel far more vulnerable now than they did before the recession and might welcome the opportunity to protect themselves and their families. Taking out a protection product means families will have peace of mind that if their income stopped due to an accident or illness, their financial needs would still be met.

4. Don’t leave it until it’s too late. Taking out protection insurance at a younger age might not be very appealing but the younger someone takes it out the cheaper it will be.

5. Don’t rely on savings or the state to provide financial help if things go wrong. Statutory Sick Pay is only £85.85 a week and is only paid for 28 weeks.

Ultimately, it’s perceptions rather than cost that is the barrier to people buying protection. People don’t value protection insurance enough, they don’t know enough about it and they don’t know that it should be a priority. All this points towards the need for people to seek advice when it comes to cover, to help them understand their priorities, the options they have and to value protection correctly.

Over to you: Do you agree that these are the top 5 reasons for taking out cover? If not what would you say is more important? What other ideas have your got? Please share them by leaving a comment below.

Photo credit: Images_of_Money via photo pin cc

Roger Edwards 14 March 2013

Laugh or cry – but please don’t be shy. Why silence is disability’s biggest bully of all

By David Sawers, editor of Health Insurance

‘Disability’ – whatever that is – can be a funny thing. Or at least it means different things to different people and, even today, individuals react to it in very different ways.

If you’ve ever seen one-footed Aussie comedian Adam Hills, you’ll know what I mean. Should we talk about it? Or should we pretend it doesn’t exist? Should we feel sorry for people? Or should we, as Adam Hills does, see the funny – as well as the serious – side of disability? But before you grab your Guardian and get on with the hand-wringing, or perhaps turn to your Telegraph and tackle the crossword, hear me out. Because either way, we shouldn’t ignore it.

The problem is that we do – and we do so in a very British way. Terrified of offending anyone and taught – quite rightly – to see ‘through’ disability to the person affected by it, we try to magic it away. And sometimes in doing so, we manage to simply bury our heads deeper into the sand, to nobody’s benefit.

Adam Hills tells the anecdote of when his metal artificial foot used to set off airport metal detectors. Security staff would discover his ‘disability’, apologise and then wave him through. Why, he would ask them, didn’t they check to see if he had a gun or a knife strapped to his other leg?

I don’t imagine that protection features much in Adam Hills’ routines, but the awkwardness that stopped the security staff from doing that affects our industry too.

Take your average large company – and one with a decent protection scheme in place for its workers. In many cases, when someone there develops, for example, MS (shh!) or cancer (shhh!) or a debilitating mental (shhhh!) health condition, their co-workers often feel too awkward to understand what is happening. As the odd day’s absence turns into weeks and then months, line managers look the other way while co-workers gossip in the canteen. And employee confidentiality – although crucial – means that, even if an insurer is working hard to provide extensive rehabilitation or the employer is going out of its way to make reasonable adjustments to get the employee back to work, often co-workers have no idea about what has been going on. Crucially – and all too frequently – they are unaware of what financial protection might be kicking in. And I haven’t even mentioned death.

Of course disability and death are, in themselves, not funny. But neither is the uncomfortable silence that seems to surround both and prevent people from being aware of just how vulnerable they and their families can be to the financial repercussions of either.

So what’s the answer? Case studies in the national press are good but can always only go so far. So what else can be done? Should posters go up on staff noticeboards or blogs go up on intranets highlighting how much has been spent on rehabilitation or on protection claims that have been paid out this year? Of course not.

Or should they be published in companies’ annual accounts – as some businesses may be leaning towards? Perhaps.

I don’t pretend to have the answer. But I always remember, in a previous role, that woman from finance that I always seemed to bump into in the lift. The one with the red hair, the one who was so ill that everybody assumed she would never come back to work. But she did. And when she did, she was hell of a funny about those rehab sessions that helped to get her there.

The thoughts and opinions in the guest blogs belong to the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Roger Edwards or Bright Grey / Scottish Provident.

Over to you: What do you think of David’s blog? Please leave a comment below.

Photo credit: tropical.pete via photopin cc

Roger Edwards 11 March 2013

Join the debate and help drive the future of protection

With the focus on gender now firmly in the rear view mirror it’s time to focus on marketing and experimenting with different ideas to give protection a shot in the arm.

The Future of Protection

This blog is a great way of engaging with the protection industry to discuss the issues that matter.  So please get involved and tell us what is going well, what issues you think need to be addressed and what you want to see more of.

I look forward to some challenging exchanges!

Roger

Roger Edwards 4 March 2013

Clients should be chomping at the bit to take out protection insurance. So why aren’t they?

The saying ‘I could eat a horse’ has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning to me, because guess what I probably have! Not surprisingly the horse meat scandal has grabbed the headlines and shows no sign of abating. The winners in all of this are the local butchers who are reporting record sales as consumers turn to locally sourced fresh meat.

As the arguments go back and forth about who’s to blame, the early signs are people are beginning to change their shopping habits and are taking more responsibility for what they eat. That makes sense. After all we shouldn’t be relying on the Government and others to control our health and well-being. Ultimately, it should be up to individuals to be responsible for their own and their family’s health.

photo credit: Marshall Astor – Food Fetishist via photopin cc

But the responsibility shouldn’t stop there. What about people’s long-term financial responsibilities? Often ignored, but ever more important, how can we encourage people to take control of this part of their lives? How can we get people to accept protection insurance as part of their monthly expenditure just as they do with home and car insurance?

Protection providers are constantly reinforcing the need for financial protection. We produce leaflets and sales aids, write blogs, articles and tweet about it. This is all valuable stuff. But sometimes it’s those real life case studies that create the most impact. Reading about someone whose payout has been a real life saver. How it enabled a family to pay off all or part of the mortgage and how it helped them to retain their lifestyle after suffering a critical illness really hits the message home.

The horse meat revelation has shocked people into making changes and might just be the catalyst people need to change their eating habits and bin the ready meals. While we know shock tactics won’t work in getting people to buy protection we must find ways to encourage people to change their attitude and start taking responsiblilty for their financial future.

Over to you: How can we get people to take responsibility for their financial future and recognise the need for protection? Do you use case studies when advising on protection? Please leave a comment below.

Roger Edwards 18 February 2013

How do we stop non-disclosure denting consumer confidence?

By Ian Smart, head of product development & technical support, Bright Grey & Scottish Provident

As the season for reporting critical illness insurance claims kicks off,  some commentators are questioning whether we’re doing enough to address non-disclosure.

Claims paid figures have greatly improved over the last few years with most providers now paying over 90% of claims. But even with more critical illness claims paid now than ever before, largely thanks to online and tele-underwriting and clearer application forms, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t push to make further improvements. Eradicating declined claims due to non-disclosure should be our ultimate goal, but is this realistic and will we ever get there?

photo credit: cali.org via photopin cc

According to Highclere Financial Services’ Alan Lakey, we’re not going to get there without a radical re-think and an overhaul of our current practices.  In order to ensure material information is disclosed at the outset Alan suggests that accessing medical records via a subject access request (SAR) before an application is accepted is the way forward.  So, could this approach really work?  Asking for full GP records on every case would not be practical if we still had to rely on GPs to comply with the SAR as it would delay every case.  It would also increase costs which would be passed on in higher premiums to customers. This begs the question would consumers be prepared to pay higher premiums for greater peace of mind?  Some will of course but there will be many others who will see it as another excuse not to buy protection insurance.

I believe the ultimate solution is for all NHS records to be centralised and available through a secure portal to interested parties such as insurance companies for a small fee.  This allows us access when required and bypasses the GP allowing them to concentrate on seeing patients. Inevitably there will be some cost to this. But collectively the industry spends many millions on GP reports every year. In these cash strapped times the Government may even welcome an offer from the industry to fund a significant part of the development. This could lead to other benefits for patients and the NHS with greater access to up to date medical records available.

Whatever the outcome we must find a solution that will appeal to us all – GPs, insurers and consumers.  What are your views on the subject?

The thoughts and opinions in the guest blogs belong to the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Roger Edwards or Bright Grey / Scottish Provident.

Over to you: Please leave a comment below.

Roger Edwards 7 February 2013

3 words to guide protection business success in 2013

Every week I listen to a podcast by an Canadian marketer called Mitch Joel (check it out it’s called Six Pixels of Separation).  It’s very insightful and relevant to marketing across all industries. In his New Year podcast he declared the three words that he will live by in 2013 and the idea appealed to me.

photo credit: stevegarfield via photopin cc

So I thought I would define what three words would be my guiding principles for protection in 2013. Here they are:

Simpler: We should strive to make everything simpler for customers and advisers across propositions, products and processes. We are a very complex industry and I think clients are crying out for less complexity.

Content: Good content is increasingly important for all businesses. It can mean website copy, videos and podcasts on the one hand and booklets, polices and letters on the other. Is the content of everything we produce going to win us business?

Experiment: If we are to grow our business we need to experiment with new ideas. This might mean putting a special price into a segment of the market, or piloting a new proposition before mass roll out. The key to experimentation is to learn and grow with each initiative. As an industry we tend not to do this – it’s always been about big build in the past.

Over to you: If you had to come up with three words to describe your approach to protection business success in 2013 what would they be? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Roger Edwards 31 January 2013