One sport at this year’s Winter Olympics has totally altered my view of the competition. If you asked me a few weeks ago if I was going to be glued to the Winter Olympics, thoroughly entertained then the answer would have been no. But one discipline, the only new sport at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver changed all that for me – ski cross.

Ski cross isn’t stuffy or traditional, the competitors aren’t clad in lycra and it’s exciting, fun and most of all it is hugely appealing. The din of the cow-bells and cheers from those spectators lining the mountainside, more than proved its popularity. It was captivating.

With the introduction of this sport the Olympic organisers recognised that to keep a healthy interest in the games they were going to have to re-invent the competition and find a way to attract a new generation of followers. The relevant lesson for all of us is that without some serious re-engineering of the protection industry and its products, we will continue to see dwindling interest in what we offer. Sales of Income Protection and Critical Illness in particular have seen a steady decline over a number of years and that may well be due to consumers preconceptions that the products are complicated and expensive. There again, it could well be because they haven’t been exposed to the products and their benefits. What is definite is that we need to shake off the mantra that the best way is the way we’ve always done it. We need to embrace change and attract the next generation of customer.

The solution at best is two-pronged. One to introduce more innovation and product development and secondly to talk to more people to not only make them aware but also to generate a keener interest. So it sounds like this is a partnership, the providers need to work at innovating; and feedback from advisers will certainly help with this, and advisers need to think of ways of communicating with the mass market.

We need to embrace change and attract the next generation of customer

Providers have taken steps to develop more simplistic products and there is certainly more exposure to protection products. New sales channels have meant that every time someone queues at their supermarket there’s an array of insurance leaflets to prick their conscience and at the very least inform them of what is out there. The industry has at least tackled the issue of confidence as the dawning of a new era of claims statistics helps convey a message of trust in the products being sold.

The need for protection is never going to go away but with the emergence of a new generation of customers advisers need to think about reaching out and adapting to entice a new customer set. Over the last decade or so there has been a web and technological revolution that has changed the world significantly, but has this affected the way in which advisers do business? The internet has made a radical difference to the way in which we communicate and the way people interact with friends and contacts.

A large percentage of a protection advisers’ database will be made up of clients from Generation X (those born between 1961 and 1981), but with the emergence of Generation Web, the current generation, who have grown up knowing only a web enabled world, things will need to be different.
Generation Web are our customers of tomorrow, they are completely immersed in technology and the benefits of a virtual world, they’re at ease with researching products and companies online, buying online and complaining and complimenting online.

So advisers selling protection who want to get ahead of the curve need to recognise new ways of doing things. In fact there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that social networking is already providing opportunities for some enterprising advisers who are using these forums as a cost effective lead generation tool.