Insurance providers, advisers and healthcare experts are reigniting the 'Seven Families' campaign to highlight the importance of protection and support services.
The campaign, which ended in July 2016, was led by the Income Protection Task Force and brought dozens of industry specialists on board to help promote the benefits of protection by focusing on seven families across Britain.
As reported on by FTAdviser at the time, Seven Families is a charity-led campaign to raise public awareness of the financial impact of long-term illness or disability.
Nearly four years after it ended the IPTF is reigniting the campaign under the title 'Do you remember... Seven Families?' The campaign is aimed at financial advisers, but is available for anyone to use freely and will involve a series of short videos throughout 2020.
The videos will use footage of the original families to highlight important topics such as mental health, the role of a financial adviser, the importance of counselling, the 'it won't happen to me' attitude which often prevents people from taking out income protection, as well as challenges such as returning to work and various other issues surrounding healthcare and insurance.
One of the families from 2016 is the Pickfords (pictured above). Paul Pickford from Bolton was fit and healthy and ran a car dealership until November 2012. Then, at the age of 42, he suffered a brain stem stroke while at work. He is now paralysed and cared for by his wife Vicky.
Alan Knowles, chairman of the Protection Distributors Group, said: "The Seven Families project was one of the greatest promotions of protection insurance that our industry has seen.
"As well as highlighting the importance of income protection it also highlighted just how incredibly valuable the additional support services are to claimants. Given the income protection market has seen growth year on year since its launch, and that the project is still discussed so heavily today, it makes perfect sense to see it revisited.
"Personally, I'm incredibly excited to see the new material and to present to both our advisers and customers."
The PDG is also working with the IPTF on several other initiatives throughout 2020, including a project to improve how income protection works for those with varying incomes, including dividends, and gig economy workers.
In addition, the two industry bodies will seek to develop an ongoing 'approved adviser list' for income protection so that, if needed, consumers and advisers can easily find a list of adviser firms who specialise in IP.
According to a statement, the IPTF will continue to work with members to deliver better adviser training. In addition to a regular range of independent content on the website, the taskforce will be launching a series of podcasts aimed at financial advisers, which will include interviews, sales tips and how to overcome objections when recommending IP.
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
