But there is something else as well. Innovation does not sit easily with our regulatory/legal environment. Lawyers have far too much influence on the way we do things because the primary motivation of most companies is avoiding being sued rather than bringing new types of previously undreamed of customer value. Sadly while I would consider myself an ardent consumerist it has to be appreciated that the flipside of consumerism often becomes tightening of market practice because the compensation culture brings with it a degree of toxicity itself. I am sure I am not the only person who is heartily sick of being told they are entitled to significant amounts of compensation for being sold PPI despite the fact they have never been near a product. Eventually a potential solution seems as toxic as the original problem. But fear of reprisal stifles imagination.
We have to focus on the big problems that people face and the biggest problem I see around me is debt. I pointed out to someone the other day a rate of APR attached to a loan company’s advertisement. The rate shown was 2700 per cen a year. I am not sure if we think that displaying these obscene rates is sufficient to alert people to the problem of getting locked into a debt spiral that they can never recover from but I would like to see some serious attention paid by the people who regulate our financial affairs to this.
The message for our industry is that we need to do what we can do to cover debts. Our existing products like income protection are generally too complicated. We should be focussing on covering regular outgoings rather than percentages of salary. Similarly outstanding liabilities are the priority for arranging life cover. If we can do this we can achieve the double whammy of ensuring that we tailor cover to the most essential expenses that we generate and also take care of the debts and overheads that keep us awake at night.
