Government, protection providers and employers must work together better to provide holistic cover in the workplace, the chief executive of Zurich's Global Life business has said.
Gary Shaughnessy, who became chief executive of Zurich's Global Life business on 1 January, said it was imperative for the whole insurance industry to think harder about how to boost protection awareness, education and take-up in the workplace.
He said: "There is an educational need for providers to get involved. We have a vested interest, of course, so cannot afford to be neutral but we also have a duty to provide support to employers and help them communicate the various benefits of workplace protection.
"It is not just about the cover but also wellness programmes, tackling presenteeism: it's the right thing to do to provide cover for staff but not all employers are aware of how to go about it."
The more transparency, the more certainty this gives the consumer.Mr Shaughnessy described the need for education about the need for protection cover as a "partnership between the government, provider and employer" when it comes to a "holistic" cover for people in the workplace.
While corporate advisers have a natural advantage in being able to discuss the need for a financial safety net with their small to medium-sized employer clients, Mr Shaughnessy said it was more difficult for financial advisers to have this discussion with their individual clients.
He said: "Most people do not think they will need cover, so they do not necessarily bring up the subject with an adviser. The IFA's role is to create awareness.
"It is not the easiest subject to get clients' heads around so the challenge for all of us is to make it easier for advisers and their clients to engage with the industry."
According to Mr Shaughnessy, technology will be the big change factor in terms of making it easier to discuss appropriate protection cover with both corporate and individual clients.
He said: "It is more than just putting products online. We need to be smarter about how we use tech to make it easier for people to engage - both for advisers and consumers.
"For example, rather than take standard products and processes and just put these online, we wanted to know what consumers actually felt was important to them.
"When we understand what the end client feels is important, it makes it easier to engage with them."
Mr Shaughnessy said one development borne out of this approach was Zurich's ability to halve the time it takes to process critical illness claims online.
The industry average for this has been approximately 50 days, according to Mr Shaughnessy, which accounts for getting the letter from the GP, sending this and the claim to the provider's administration team and then having them review it before the claim can be paid.
Now, they can simply take a photo of the GP's letter and send it in via email - this can significantly reduce the length of time it takes to process a claim, which Mr Shaughnessey said was down to an average of 25 days (although simple cases can take a matter of just a few days).
Last month, FTAdviser reported how Legal & General Insurance has started investigating ways to bring a form of robo-advice to the protection process to improve the customer journey.
Mark Holweger, managing director at Legal & General Insurance, said the company was not only exploring how to use data "sensibly and correctly" to create the best possible cover, but also working to "fit protection propositions into other systems" such as robo-advice.
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
