Practical Protection Podcast : Gender and Income Protection (40 mins CPD)
Hi everyone. I hope you found the previous episode interesting, where we spoke about transgender and non-binary people accessing insurance and some of the common questions they may be asked when applying.
This week, Jo Elphick from Legal & General is joining me and Roy McLoughlin in the new episode which focuses on gender and income protection. Legal & General have been looking at how gender influences the way that people engage with group income protection insurance. The statistics are quite interesting!
65% of women surveyed believe that income protection is relevant to them, versus only 35% of men that felt it is worthwhile
As we talk through the findings, Jo helps us to understand the way that women tend to see the value of income protection more than men, yet less women than men take up and engage with this policy type. We really should be shouting from the rooftops about how group support services can help people and their immediate family, especially after we talk about how women traditionally tend to address health concerns early on, in contrast to their ‘invincible’ male counterparts.
Many people don’t engage with group income protection as they have little understanding of what the policy actually is, and often when this policy is in place, group insurance support services are not filtered to employees well enough, being lost amongst all the noise of employment contracts and onboarding procedures. Both of which are reasons why as an industry, we should try to get more information out there to help educate those who are missing out.
Other reasons that a person may not engage with group income protection that came up were the fear that an employer might learn too much about the employee’s health, or that a partner dealt with all the financial side of things and they were unaware that these support services could benefit the whole family.
Storytelling that demonstrates the benefits of engaging with group support services, is where we can show how income protection isn’t’ just about money, it’s about wellbeing too.
In the next episode, Matt Rann joins me as we focus on skin cancer and how it can affect your insurance options. I think people are often surprised at how much someone having had skin cancer can alter the terms on offer. I also think a lot of people are shocked when they hear that people in the UK should be wearing suncream everyday!
If you would like to learn more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my new Protection Insurance in Practice course here.
If you’re listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate. These are now accredited by CPD UK, through our sponsor Octo Members. Once you have listened to the episode, don’t forget to claim your certificate here.
You may find that your work systems are not keen on the CPD form (it’s a google form). Please don’t worry if that is the case. Contact me on social media or through the website and I will be able to issue the certificate directly to you.
Kathryn Knowles, Managing Director, Cura Financial Services Ltd
