Insurer switches focus to underinsured women
INSURERS AND their agents need to learn a new language to talk to women in their bid to reduce underinsurance in New Zealand.
‘‘The statistics show that underinsurance is prevalent throughout the OECD, and New Zealand has one of the greatest problems,’’ says Asteron managing director David Carter.
‘‘Data shows women are even more underinsured than men,’’ he said.
While there have been improvements, by and large the blokey insurance industry still has much to learn about talking to women, including getting away from the language of fear, which many women find offputting.
Carter was one of the people behind Asteron’s Australian Million Dollar Woman campaign, which quickly became the second most recognised insurance brand among women.
The campaign focused on aspects of insuring women, including trying to put a price on unpaid work in the home, which in many cases enabled husbands to focus on their careers.
Unfortunately it did not deliver the new business Asteron had hoped, which means it is unlikely to be replicated here.
Carter said a squeeze on discretionary spending associated with tougher economic times seems to have been behind the disappointing sales figures, as well as rising costs for other forms of insurance such as house insurance following a number of major weather-related insurance events in Australia.
But while Million Dollar Woman is unlikely to come here, Carter has brought his determination for Asteron to change the nature of its dialogue with women.
‘‘This has been a very blokey industry. It was born out of a time when most women tended not to have careers,’’ he said.
Most insurance brokers are men, though the number of women has begun to rise quite fast, and the traditional sales technique has been to work away at the man with the idea that the woman needed protecting should anything happen to him.
There was practically no focus on exactly what the man would do should his partner die or be incapacitated, and it remains one of the great areas of underinsurance all across the developed world.
In many households men are still the biggest earners, but the value of unpaid household work is largely unrecognised, meaning should the person doing it not be able to work, then the costs associated with hiring the likes of cleaners, childcare, gardeners, and cooks is not covered.
The bemusing thing about the approaches the industry has tended to take is that they have not yet adequately responded to research that quite clearly shows that around 80 per cent of the financial decisions in a household are made or influenced by women.
Some women-specific issues are largely ignored.
In Australia, where the penetration of living insurance is higher, claims by women in their 20s and 30s have been on the rise, he said, with many claims to do with cancer.
‘‘The impact on society and the individual is massive,’’ Carter says, but added: ‘‘We weren’t having that conversation with anyone.’’
It is not the only issue the industry faces.
‘‘We have been really good at making this stuff complicated,’’ Carter said, particularly in regard to ‘‘living insurances’’ like income protection and trauma cover.
The industry has created products where those expected to buy them would struggle to understand what they are covered for, Carter maintains.
Policies are riddled with cancer and heart attack cover definitions only medics could be expected to understand.
That thinking was behind Asteron’s move to accept any and