Programme
COVER Magazine is delighted to welcome you back to the COVER Protection and Health Summit.
Arrive early and start the day right by enjoying our welcome breakfast!
We start off the day with a welcome from our editor, John Brazier.
The theme for this year’s COVER Protection and Health Summit is “Raising the Standards”. What does COVER Summit have instore?
This years’ COVER Protection and Health Summit is all about “Raising the Standards”. Over the last 12 months, there has been more call to action to improve process, access and user experience to both protection and health, especially with the introduction of Consumer Duty. But regulation isn’t the only driving factor for this new expectation of excellence. There is an evolving demand for policies to be scaled and personalised to meet user needs, and the emerging necessity for firms to implement more insurtech to streamline process and improve customer experience to be in line with modern behavioural needs.
How can advisors, intemediaries, insurers and providers meet the challenge? Who, what and why is at the centre of the industry calling for this change?
This session will:
- Discuss the aspirations and behaviours shaping the protection and health industry
- Understand the outlook of the industry over the next 12-18 months
- Recognise the impact of the customer in the industry's potential for change
- Determine the role of the customer in development of policy and practice
There’s a lot in the press about the gender pensions gap, and a timebomb ticking for women in retirement which isn’t going away any time soon. But is there a gender gap across all ages and life stages? And how does this impact protection, and financial resilience overall?
This session will:
- Discuss new Royal London research on the protection gender gap
- Consider what new angles and opportunities there are for advisers to help deliver better outcomes for those impacted
Revolutionising Employee Wellbeing with Technology Digital applications such as health apps have given people proactive control of their health and wellbeing, as well as opening up new opportunities for organisations to better support their employees. By creating responsible and sustainable solutions supported by technology, employers can provide accessible support that has a positive impact on their workforce.
In this session, employee benefits experts Unum will discuss the latest developments in digital healthcare and, look at how technology is being used as an enabler to create total employee support.
This session will:
- Cover the latest trends, developments and innovations in digital healthcare
- Recognise how digital healthcare impacts employee health and wellbeing strategies
- Demonstrate how data insights can help us better understand, anticipate and personalise the modern workforce’s future healthcare needs
There is enormous need for innovation in insurance. There has never been a better time for advisers to really understand the needs of their customers and build a protection portfolio.
This session will:
- Discuss the interplay between the cost of living crisis, consumer duty and complexity in insurance
- Share our findings about how customer’s view ‘value’ and how this can aid the sales process
- Challenge the status quo on the perception of protection and how it can help advisers meet their consumer duty responsibilities
Around two thirds are overweight or obese, while habits such as smoking, poor diets and sedentary lifestyles are leading causes of premature deaths in this country, costing the NHS billions each year. Meanwhile, poor health has driven half a million more people out of work and low productivity is responsible for an estimated total £127.9bn economic loss since 2019. Even with a wellbeing industry worth trillions globally, our nation is not getting any healthier and economic inactivity levels are still rising.
In this session, Vitality Chief Growth and Operations Officer, Greg Levine, addresses the myths around the role insurers and advisers can play in unlocking better health in the UK and how insurance is responding to meet the rapidly changing needs of customers in the world today.
Time to grab a coffee and meet our exhibitors.
We're delighted to welcome the Women in Protection Network as chair of this stream
With Consumer Duty putting greater emphasis on ‘good client outcomes’, delivering ‘fair value’ and ‘avoiding foreseeable harm’, it’s more important than ever that protection and health advisers deliver advice that stands the test of time. With the cost of living crisis putting immense financial pressure on households in the UK, there is greater need for regular client reviews and to highlight the immediate value available within insurance products as they continue to evolve. With Vitality data showing a highly engaged client far less likely to cancel, there has never been a better time to offer a less transactional form of financial advice especially in the present climate.
Often confused but very different – with two purposes and focuses on recovery, how can vocational rehabilitation and occupational health work together to deliver the best outcome for the policyholder.
This session will:
- Discuss the interconnection of vocational rehabilitation and occupational health
- Cover the stages recovery and where both OH and VR fit
- Understand where OH or VR is best skilled in the recovery process, supporting return to work and working as a collective force
Frustration with insurer service levels from intermediaries is growing in the industry. Services were scaled back during the pandemic to reduce costs, but they have not been returned to pre-2020 levels as new business increases. Conversations about consumer duty have focused on product and new business, but are post-sale expectations being met? Decisions are based on the service received in the early stages, and there are serious consequences if expectations are not met.
This panel will:
- Assess the impact of low service levels on customer outcomes and market reputation
- Recognise the low term implications, as well as the ethical and moral obligations
- Discuss how best to assist and prepare customers in the post-sale process
We're delighted to welcome the Protection Distributors Group as chair of this stream
Bonnie Earl will take the audience on a journey ‘behind the scenes’ in the development of MetLife’s new ChildShield product and share the moments that helped shape it. Plus some personal reflections.
In this session, Bonnie will share 3 key moments:
- Setting our protection philosophy
- The customer research
- The adviser perspective
The cost of living in the UK continues to increase at a dramatic rate - mortgage rates and rental costs have shot up; while food, energy and council tax bills are also on the rise. So, it’s inevitable that when families look to tighten their belts, protection policies come under the spotlight and you may find yourself coming up against more objections from clients when you discuss the cost of protection.
However, the current economic climate means having a protection plan in place is more important than ever. If your client died prematurely, became ill or suffered an injury, how would they cope with the additional financial and emotional strain of not being able to work on top of the increased cost of living? Could their family cope financially if they were no longer here?
Join Royal London to consider the implications of not having protection in place and a range of tools and ideas to help clients understand the importance of protecting their home, their family and their lifestyle.
When individuals experience critical illness or personal accidents resulting in total permanent disability, one of their primary concerns is ensuring financial security for themselves and any dependents. In 2022, the average claims paid across the board were approximately 92%. However, when specifically considering total permanent disability claims, the payout rate was only 70.3%.
Although most paid claims were based on the "own occupation" definition, focusing on the claimant's ability to perform their current job, challenges still persist.
A significant difficulty facing TPD claims is that the success of the claim is determined on the resulting impact of the condition, as opposed to the condition itself. This approach allows insurers to assess the claimant’s ability to perform their current occupation or any other suitable occupation.
This session will:
- Explore the significance of “own occupation” and “suited occupation” definitions
- Evaluate the effectiveness of activity-based definitions and functional assessment tests, determining if they’re fit for purpose
- Discuss potential methods to improve the claiming process for TPD benefitting claimants
Time for lunch - grab a bite to eat in the exhibition hall and grow your network!
The CII conducts ongoing consumer research across the insurance sector based on what consumers believe is important. From this, we can start to tie together the ethical foundations around insurance, protection, and consumer outcomes.
Consumer Duty outcomes are seen as self-evidently a good thing. But, is this the case when it comes to the ethics? Do these set consumer outcomes fit into different ethical approaches?
This session will:
- Discuss the ethical obligations and implications of Consumer Duty in the protection market
- Recognise the issues around protection and the ethical underpinning from CII practice
- Understand the ideas of professionalism and its relationship with the Consumer Duty
Check back for more on this session.
The protection and health industry are pushing forward and embracing technology as an opportunity to modernise the customer process to be more efficient and accessible. With customer-centricity at the core of the insurance process, how can intermediaries, tech providers and insurers work together to ensure compliance and drive overall process improvements?
This session will:
- Identify opportunities for collaborative innovation in protection and health
- Explore how collaborative technology innovation can move the industry forward
- Analyse how technology integration can lead to improved service quality
- Discuss the impact of streamlined processes on customer experience and satisfaction
- Showcase successful examples of technology-drive problem solving in protection and health
Are you looking to improve your call handling? Not sure how to respond to a customers objection? In this session, meet a self-declared master of customer objections, understand how to journey the conversation, keep your customers onboard and resolve any objection without breaking a sweat.
Time to grab a coffee and meet our exhibitors.
The protection and health industry are committed to many important charters – championing DEI and providing access to specialist services as part of policies. So why do we offer added-value services like mental health access, but penalise customers that have accessed such services with mental health exclusions? Why do we send women in specialist services to help with menopause, but then increase premiums because they’ve accessed treatment, which affects 13 million women in the UK?
In this session, our speakers will:
- Evaluate the industry’s adherence to important charters, including mental health, diversity, equity and inclusion, and menopause
- Explore the need to refresh underwriting rules to ensure they are fit for purpose and in line with industry values
Consumer Duty has made protection and health step back and look at how the industry needs to fundamentally change. With the customer at the heart of the business, all actions taken will hinge back to Consumer Duty.
We are joined by Lisa Sturley, Head of Department, Market Interventions, Insurance at the FCA, as the closing keynote of the COVER Protection and Summit.
Thank you for joining COVER Protection and Health Summit.
Please note that this programme is subject to change