ProtectionMay 27 2016

Insurance must become more dynamic

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Insurance must become more dynamic

Advisers can expect some more innovation from insurer Vitality Health this year, the chief executive has pledged.

Speaking to Emma Ann Hughes, editor of FTAdviser and Financial Adviser, Neville Koopowitz said it has been 16 months since the company rebranded from Pru Health.

“This has given us the opportunity to relaunch an exciting insurance brand, which is typically in a non-exciting industry and ‘excitement’ is what we are trying to achieve”, he said.

He added: “We believe life and health insurance should be much more dynamic in terms of product and this rebrand has given us the opportunity to further our ‘shared value’ approach.

“We as a group internationally have been using this model for many years and at the core of this model is understanding how behaviour has a significant impact on insurance risk. If you can change behaviours, you can change the insurance risk and everyone can benefit from that.”

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Mr Koopowitz said this had been the most significant change, the value Vitality Health can give to the intermediaries, the clients and for all stakeholders - “and society in general”.

Vitality Health and Vitality Life together insure approximately 900,000 lives but the company does not set goals or targets.

“We don’t have any bold goals around membership”, he explained. “We want to build a quality business and we want our members to engage and get value from our products.”

Although Vitality has been working on engagement for many years, many other insurers have started to look at ways to incentivise and engage clients. However, Mr Koopowitz told FTAdviser this was no easy task.

He explained the Wellness element has taken time to integrate into the Vitality Health product. “Bear in mind this has taken us as a group 20 years to understand, not only the clinical benefits of it but also how people engage with it, the behavioural element of this, and how customers benefit from the use of such incentives.”

Advisers can also look forward to more innovation, Mr Koopowitz added, pointing to a product launch later this month, which is “evolving and embedding this concept of people behavioural economics, changing their behaviour, improving that risk and sharing that value with our members”.

However despite all the innovation from individual insurers, the government needs to do a lot more to help get more people aware of their healthcare needs, especially as the state will not be able to continue to provide, he added.

simoney.kyriakou@ft.com