Demand simple, personalised life insurance

0
246

The start of the year is a common time for people to re-evaluate their lifestyles, their careers and their financial situations. This often manifests as the famous “New Year’s resolution,” an impulsive decision to kickstart the year with some form of lifestyle change, fitness goal or new habit.

Popular and perfectly admirably resolutions include diets, training to run the Comrades marathon, refraining from alcohol, or starting a hobby. These resolutions often fade out in the year, leaving people wondering why they even bothered with such a short-lived undertaking.

The same principles apply to one’s financial well-being. A short-term financial approach will not lead to long-term prosperity.

Short-termism is also implicit in the one-size-fits-all approach to many financial products. They are easily sold, and easily charged for, but are they tailored to a client’s personal needs? Do they integrate into the individual’s overall financial portfolio? Will they ultimately provide financial security? One-size-fits-all can never be the right approach, since all of us are different, and our circumstances most certainly are. Our financial needs, while different from each other, also change over time.

At the same time, a piecemeal strategy that only addresses one of your financial needs, to the exclusion of your broader financial portfolio, is also not optimal.

In-depth research and client engagement give financial institutions great insights into consumers’ real needs. What they reveal is a clear customer demand for integrated financial services with a holistic view of their portfolio.

If, in the spirit of the season, you have resolved to get yourself onto a more secure financial footing, we suggest three prime considerations in taking a fresh new approach to this:

  1. Look for products you understand

It’s not unreasonable to ask for simple, easy-to-understand products – after all, you want to be certain that you’re going to get what you’ve been promised. Ensure that you get, or rather demand, elegant simplicity and reduced complexity, but never at the expense of comprehensiveness.

Offerings such as life cover, disability cover, income protection cover and severe illness cover can be consolidated under one service provider, tailored to your individual requirements.

Although convenient, debt cover products traditionally offer poor value for money. This is changing, however. There are new products on the market where, for example, the life cover automatically adjusts as your outstanding loan balance reduces, so your premiums shrink over time.

  1. Make sure it is

The full article is reserved for our subscribers!

Read this interview article by Michael Goemans, CEO, Investec Life, as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the February/March 2018 edition of BusinessBrief.


VIEW our subscription options

ALREADY SUBSCRIBED?


Questions or problems?

admin@bbrief.co.za | +27 (0)11 788 0880 |


 



LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here