Aviva and Friends Life in IP awareness campaign
Aviva and Friends Life have launched Income Protection Matters, a campaign to help advisers demonstrate the importance of income protection to clients.
ABI figures have shown that 10.8m households are at risk of their income falling by at least a third if the main earner should stop working.
Louise Colley, Aviva’s director of protection, said: “Making people aware of the real risk of not having any protection in place if they were to lose a main household income is an absolute priority.”
Key features:
■ Income Protection Matters provides advisers with an online service to help them overcome objections and start conversations with clients.
■ Advisers can also use a tool to show clients how long they could manage financially without their salary.
The awareness campaign will complement Aviva’s and Friends Life’s sponsorship of the Seven Families initiative.
Seven Families is a charity-led project that shows the value of income protection by paying families a tax-free income for a year. The project was set up in 2014 to highlight the importance of protecting one’s income.
It is administered by Disability Rights UK and the Income Protection Task Force, and supported by insurance providers such as Aviva, British Friendly, Royal London and Zurich.
In July this year, a Surrey-based financial adviser who has defied three different types of cancer and completed a trek to the South Pole became the first ambassador of the Seven Families project.
Patrick McIntosh, of KMG Chartered Financial Planners, will provide advice and support to Seven Families, promoting its initiatives and speak at its events.
He said: “Seven Families is an inspiring campaign and underlines two very important issues.
“Firstly, that most people are desperately vulnerable financially if they become seriously ill, and secondly, that there is a way back to health and work after a serious illness.
“Some of the people in this project are going through incredible life changes and it is so important to highlight their struggle.”
Adviser View
Jeremy Edwards, financial adviser at Leicestershire-based Bankfield Financial Advisers, said: “Income protection is probably one of the most useful policies, but getting people to buy it is another thing. Although not entirely altruistic, the campaign had to come from someone. I would like to see employer and trade unions encouraging staff to take out a policy.”
