To highlight this, Bright Grey has launched a campaign tackling protection and life insurance concerns.
Following Summer research into consumers’ attitudes to protection, Bright Grey has unveiled its ‘Helping Hands’ magazine explaining the costs and benefits of taking out cover. The company, a division of Royal London, has also urged brokers to educate their clients about the benefits of taking out cover after its July 2005 research revealed 22 per cent of UK adults insure their fridge, 28 per cent insure their credit cards while only 15 per cent insure their income.
In addition to ‘Helping Hands’ Bright Grey has started a poster campaign to highlight the inexpensive cost of cover by showing it can be as affordable as a trip to the cinema.
Susan Sneddon, communications director at Bright Grey, admitted brokers and lenders needed to do more to promote the protection sector. “As an industry we have our work cut out for us in terms of educating people about the real value of protection and we are working with advisers to help them get this message across,” she said.
James Carter, IFA at Virtue Financial, agreed protection was a major issue but was unsure if consumers realised the importance of income protection. Speaking about the fact more people insure their fridges than their income, he said: “It’s not just the percentages that are the problem, it’s the fact fridge insurance is probably a huge percentage of the purchase price and income protection can be very cheap relative to salary.
“These types of figures do need pushing into the public domain but when the public see them do they gasp as we in the industry do? I doubt it. I think the level of financial education is such that they are probably more worried about replacing their lost chicken dippers than incomes,” he added.
