ProtectionJul 1 2015

Keeping it simple

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Mark Jones, the new protection director at SunLife, Axa Wealth’s over-50 life cover provider, has spent the last 15 years developing protection products for financial advisers.

Now he is moving into the arena for consumers, developing a range of simple products that can be sold direct to customers without the convoluted procedures involved for adviser products.

He said: “To do something simple, you really, really have to understand the complicated. If you don’t understand the complex, you can’t make it simple. It’s understanding the risks, and understanding which ones you’ll be able to take a wider view on, and still have a premium that’s affordable.”

According to Mr Jones, the average person in the street is not getting access to the products he or she needs.

He said: “There are an awful lot of people not engaged with protection and not in a position to make a decision; a lot of people won’t engage with IFAs, and many IFAs would struggle economically to serve them; it’s trying to go to the great unserved.”

Mr Jones, previously head of protection at LV=, plans to develop a range of products at SunLife that could make the more complex, sophisticated protection products available to the customer with simpler finances.

He said: “What we want to do is direct to consumer, it’s simple and affordable, and not really based on having medical history. We don’t go for getting in touch with doctors.

“One of the real problems for the industry is that we struggle to get people to consider protection and then when we do we put them through a process and say ‘give us a couple of months and we will give you a price’.

“When you’re trying to talk direct with people and they’re used to dealing with companies like Amazon, they will put the phone down, they’re not interested.

“The over-riding factor for us, is if you can’t do it really simply, and if you can’t, get an immediate decision, and if it can’t be done at an affordable level, we won’t do it.”

The idea Mr Jones has is to start looking at what SunLife already does – insurance products for the over-50s – and then consider expanding the product line into simplified versions of more complicated products, and creating a more family-appealing product line.

Mr Jones said: “There are some incredible products out in the market that cover you for pretty much anything that’s even remotely likely to happen to you. If you explain that to someone at the start they will turn off.

“If instead you cover someone for the most likely thing, but they recognise that at no stage do you misinform them that they’re covered for everything, we can provide them with products that they can make sense of.”

Part of the problem of the protection industry is that it has made products too complicated in an effort to get financial advisers’ attention. He said: “A lot of the risk-profiling is driven by an IFA looking at different products from different providers. For providers to really understand the risk they’re taking up, you have to have a lot of information.”

Apart from keeping things simple, Mr Jones also has good back-up. He said: “The reason I have confidence in being able to do this is in part because SunLife has the benefit of a very good and established marketing set-up.

“You only have one chance to make a good impression when you’re dealing direct to consumers. It’s important to get something out there and trial it – it’s a test and learn approach.”

Mr Jones spent a long time at what was then Friends Provident, working for it through its flotation and the subsequent financial troubles it experienced, before then going to work for LV.

He did not particularly see much difference between working for a mutual and working for a corporate. He said: “It’s all about the people. Once I left Friends Provident, it went through more change; that can be very uncomfortable and some people can find it very stressful.

“SunLife is effectively a year old – it rebranded a year ago. There’s a huge amount of energy to really take this forward.”

The job came about when Mr Jones left LV=. It had reached a stage that Mr Jones “wasn’t overly interested in”, and Dean Lamble, the managing director of SunLife contacted him. He said the consumer side was “something that’s really interested me for a number of years.”

He added: “A number of IFA providers are interested in the direct-to-consumer space, but how many of them are able to focus their resources in that area?”

He added: “It’s a bit more risky than conventional opportunities, but you don’t often get the chance to do what you really, really think ought to be done – so I’m giving it my best shot.”

Melanie Tringham is features editor at Financial Adviser

2015 SunLife, protection director

2009 LV, head of protection

1999 Friends Provident, head of protection

1989 Abbey Life, Product Development Actuary

1987 Abbey Life, Human Resources department