Addressing delegates at the Association of British Insurers Biennial Conference, McDermott (pictured) said the insurance industry must not ‘rest on its laurels’ and carry on working to meet the changing needs of customers.
While McDermott recognised that the UK insurance market had a ‘tendency’ to find solutions for customer needs, she added that rapidly changing technology and the increasing role of data presented opportunities to develop better targeted products.
She said: “Demographic and social change is also changing the landscape. Our population is ageing. Indebtedness among the young is growing. There is an increasing expectation that people will take more responsibility for their own financial futures and a demand for the industry to develop new ways to help them do that. But financial capability remains low and the advice landscape patchy.”
“The challenge for the industry is to develop products and services that meet these changing needs and the new environment,” McDermott added.
Referencing the regulator’s recently launched Financial Advice Market Review, McDermott said that the industry needed to work together to determine areas for improvement.
“Our work on the Financial Advice Market Review is a good example of this. Building on the work of the RDR [Retail Distribution Review], the review is asking some fundamental questions about how we can ensure that consumers are able to obtain the support they need to plan their financial affairs,” she added.
“This is not the first time regulators have asked this question and many apparently good ideas have failed to gain traction in the past.”
