It’s good to see that Insurance Age has launched their new Insurance Cares (#InsCares) campaign designed to help insurance brokers and insurers to share their knowledge and practical experiences about how they have helped make life easier for vulnerable customers.
As someone who has a vulnerable close relative, I have seen first-hand how a robust vulnerable customers policy can make dealing with utilities and banking a lot less stressful for all involved (both for the vulnerable customers and their families).
When I have to ring up firms on behalf of my relative I usually start by stating that I am calling on behalf of a vulnerable customer and then I ask them to confirm what their vulnerable customers policy is.
Sometimes this is met with the standard, “We can only speak to the account holder”, or, “I will have to put you through to a Supervisor”, and you know that their staff have not been fully trained on how to deal with the situation. Other times you will usually find they have specialist departments who are trained to deal with the questions and know how to respond. It is hit and miss.
Some of the best examples I have seen include companies who have trained all their front-line staff to understand a) that vulnerable customers exist, and b) what to do when you are speaking to someone who is vulnerable or one of their family members. This means that the first person you speak to knows what to do and knows the problems that vulnerable customers may have in dealing with important matters.
Every vulnerable customer is different and not all of them are vulnerable all the time. They won’t all even be in a position to have someone ring up a bank, utility company or insurer on their behalf and this can be stressful for them, particularly if they do not understand what is being said.
And what of those customers your sales team may be ringing who could be vulnerable? Is it fair that someone with mental illness unwittingly signs up to a mobile phone contract because the sales person tells them they will get a new handset? What about the elderly person agreeing to a new insurance product who has no need for some of the add-ons that your sales team are going to include? The answer is that it is not fair.
The FCA is taking a closer look at how your firm deals with vulnerable customers and they can spot trends just by looking at your MI, including sales data.
From my own point of view, I think it is important that every insurance broker and insurer should train all their front-line staff to understand what to do if they need to help a vulnerable customer or believe they may be making a sales call to someone who does not understand what they might be buying.
In July 2015, we designed and added 3 courses to the Aviva Development Zone aimed at making sure insurance brokers understood how to work with vulnerable customers.
What is reassuring is that the gap analysis assessments show that the benchmark level of knowledge amongst those who have gone through the online courses is respectfully high. If, for example, we take the introductory module on Dealing with Vulnerable Customers, we can see that out of 1,013 individual attempts, the average score was 77%, with the majority scoring between 80 and 85%:
Having completed the learning, the average score increases to 93%, with the majority scoring between 95 and 100%:
This shows that whilst our knowledge and understanding is high, there is still room for improvement, but I am encouraged by the results and it says a lot about the insurance broking profession that we are ready to take the challenge on.
Having a vulnerable customers policy is not just about ticking a box; what’s important, is how you then build this policy into your company culture to ensure that every member of staff understands why it is needed and how they can support vulnerable customers.
If I ring a company now and they cannot provide support for my vulnerable relative then I ensure that we take our business elsewhere. Don’t lose potential clients because you haven’t put the right support in place for them. Let’s show our customers that the insurance industry really does care.
If you would like to know more about how to look after vulnerable customers and would like help putting together a vulnerable customers policy, then RWA can help you do this. We have online learning through the Aviva Development Zone and can also provide hands-on consultancy to help you embed the policy throughout your business. Get in touch.
About the author
Tom Wood
Tom joined RWA in 2006 and was part of the executive team that helped grow the company into one of the leading general insurance FCA compliance consultancies in the UK. He is now Head of Commercial for UKGI Group's consultancy division, and has been working closely on the harmonisation of RWA into UKGI. Tom also leads the Searchlight Insurance Training team, part of UKGI Learning Solutions.
