As we hurtle towards another Christmas and a barnstorming new year’s celebration, I find it increasingly difficult to account for the passage of time. How fast it now seems to fly by – like a Concorde on steroids.
No longer the languor of what appeared to be eternal youth. Now, rattling helter skelter to a pension and afternoons spent having tea and biscuits at the local Conservative club.
Have the clocks quickened up in old age? Does Big Ben chime a little quicker, a little more often these days and nights? I really do think so (and no I have not been indulging in the Christmas Tawny Port).
Come on, think back. Is it really seven months ago when we woke up (alone in my case) one morning expecting that we were heading for another five years of Coalition Government, but this time with an administration led by Edward Samuel Miliband?
How wrong we were. Goodbye Mr Miliband, goodbye Mr Clegg, hello again Mr Cameron and his financial henchman Mr Osborne. It all seems like yesterday – despite the fact that we have had both a summer Budget and an Autumn Statement to endure since May 7.
And is it just over seven years ago that the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered turmoil in global financial markets – a turn of events that we are still trying to spin out of.
Is it just over seven years ago that the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered turmoil in global financial markets?I still carry vivid pictures in my mind of those unfortunate Lehman Brothers employees forlornly walking across Canary Wharf in London’s Docklands, carrying their work possessions in cardboard boxes bearing their names. It might not seem like yesterday, but 2008? Never.
Carrying on with the ‘seven’ theme, it does not feel as if a year (13 months to be accurate) has passed in my mediocre life since I first spoke with a delightful lady called Tracey Clarke about her involvement in the Seven Families Campaign.
Tracey, as you may well know – especially if you recommend financial protection insurance to your clients – lit the fuse that ignited a £350,000 campaign, designed to demonstrate that with a little love, some sound advice and professional help, people with challenging long-term health issues can be put in a better place.
A campaign based on rehabilitating seven families struck by long-term illness, with Tracey, husband Tim and guide dog Oakley being the first to participate in the experiment. I was the first journalist to interview her and proud of that I am. Very proud in fact – my work highlight of 2014 and also of 2015 (when I went to visit her on her narrow boat).
Although the Income Protection Insurance Task Force, led by the masterful Peter Le Beau, seems shy to admit it, the Seven Families campaign is also about highlighting the fact that the nation is horribly income protection insurance light – and that it is about time we got heavy.
There is no doubt in my mind that Seven Families, that Mr Le Beau’s task force launched in November last year, has been the financial campaign of this year. On so many levels. And by many a country mile.
On a micro level, it has transformed the lives of those seven families it has helped. You only need to speak to Tracey to realise how rejuvenated she is as a result of the mix of financial support (a year’s worth of income protection insurance benefit) and professional assistance (from advisers through to nurses) she has received over the past year.
Despite creeping blindness, she has now embarked upon a career as a writer – helped by the purchase of a laptop and ‘screenreader’ computer software that talks emails when she has one of her ‘bad eyes’ days.
She and Tim have also used money from Seven Families to refit the bathroom aboard their 58 foot narrow boat Sola Gratia and install some more solar panels to keep fuel costs down. Rather than frit away their money on day-to-day living costs, they have used it to improve their lives.
“It has been an amazing adventure,” she told an audience of Seven Families Campaign supporters at a recent event in London. ‘The money has been fabulous and I’ve received some super support from the likes of independent care advisory service Red Arc. I am now in a better place. I don’t see myself as disabled any more. I feel re-enabled.”
How fantastic. How moving. I certainly was as I listened to her speech with Oakley crunching his way through a bag of carrots as if he did not have a care in the world.
The campaign also seems to have struck home with financial advisers – which is crucial. A survey conducted by Seven Families indicates that its campaign has both increased awareness of income protection among advisers and helped advisers discuss financial protection issues with clients.
Has there been an increase in income protection insurance sales as a result of Seven Families? Maybe. Figures from Gen Re indicate an increase in sales for the first half of this year.
But I imagine it will take more than Seven Families to make income protection a must-buy financial proposition. Zurich Life, a campaign backer, believes so.
It has just issued a great report quantifying the ‘value’ of rehabilitation services offered through group income protection insurance - £110m a year. ‘Value’ as in getting people back to work earlier and reducing sickness and welfare payments.
Zurich passionately believes income protection insurance is the way forward. But employers and employees, it says, should be incentivised by government to take it out with some form of tax break.
Food for thought as the turkey roasts in the oven and the Prosecco flows.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year. Calendar year 2016 cannot come quickly enough.
Jeff Prestridge is personal finance editor of the Mail on Sunday
