However Verdin, a senior industry figure with more than a decade of experience in the market, also warned that it was slowly dying and urged for a concerted coordinated effort by the whole industry to produce long term sustainable growth.
Speaking on a personal basis at the Actuarial Profession’s Health and Care Conference, Verdin explained his serious concerns about the present state of the market and its focus on technicalities.
“Since 2006 the protection market has been dying bit by bit, year by year,” he said.
“We are an industry that’s overly focused on the product not the customer and it has been the same debate since 2003 which annoys and frustrates me.
“We are more interested in the fluff and in the detail that customers don’t understand when they come to our industry.
“As an industry we are not engaging with customers the way we should do,” he added.
And Verdin urged advisers to look at protecting more of customers’ needs than just the mortgages or debt they owe.
However, he also noted there was light at the end of the tunnel with the coalition viewing the market positively and being keen to co-operate.
“Now is a really good time to include government because there are still people who think they can depend upon the state but never has there been a time when government was more willing to listen,” he said.
“So we can’t just think about customers, we have to think about government and take a twin approach if we are going to build a sustainable market.
“The ABI and industry representatives are working with the Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions and they’re up for it.
“They’re as engaged in this as you could possibly hope to be and they are enthusiastic,” he added.
Verdin revealed that the ABI working group, of which he is a member, is aiming to involve organisations from outside the industry to support its goal of producing a consumer facing website.
It is hoped partners such as charities, consumer associations and central and local government would direct consumers to the site which would provide information and tools that customers could easily interact with to understand their protection needs.
“We want them to turn up at the seller having already done a bit of work saying ‘This is what I think I need, these are my areas of priority, these are my areas of interest’,” he added.
He also praised the earlier work of Tom Baigrie, managing director of LifeSearch, for his attempt to create an industrywide consumer marketing campaign, but explained the reasons for its downfall.
“The Consumer Protection Insurance Engagement Campaign (CPIEC) was too big, way too complicated in execution and its tactics were probably just a little bit too scary,” Verdin said.
“In the end it was just too expensive and when it came to the crunch insurers and reinsurers were not going to put their hands in their pockets.”
