29 May 2017

The Privilege of Protecting Lives

In the day to day crush of submitting applications, issuing policies, reconciling premium payments and generating reports (so many reports!) it can be easy to lose sight of why it all matters. Insurance isn’t about all the pieces of paper that may find themselves on your desk at any given moment. It’s about the people who are protected because they or someone who loves them has invested in insurance coverage.

Financial advisors have the unique privilege of helping people protect what matters to them. With that privilege, there is also the satisfaction of being able to deliver on those promises when the time comes. Think back to the last time you were able to deliver a check to a grieving family – in a time of sorrow you were able to give the comfort of financial stability.

Remember the feeling when a client found themselves facing a medical emergency and the health policy you sold them guaranteed that they could receive treatment without compromising their financial future.

Sure, it can seem abstract and easy to dismiss. Sceptics will say that quality insurance is a luxury that many can’t afford and a necessarily evil for those that can. The fact remains that there is nothing abstract about it for the family whose child can go to college because life insurance helped them accumulate enough savings to cover tuition. It’s not theoretical for the policyholder who receives Accidental Medical Expense Reimbursement thanks to their personal accident coverage.

In each of those instances, there is a real human being whose life is positively impacted thanks to the insurance industry.

Words Matter

The story of the insurance industry should be told by its principal actors – the companies and professionals who commit to delivering best in class products and services because they understand the value that it adds to the lives of current and future policyholders.

At the same time, it’s important for those actors to find the right words to remind people that at the end of the day, we are about the lives we protect. When we generate all those reports and we talk about financial strength and equity and enterprise risk management, it’s because those are the tools we use to guarantee that we’ll be there when our customers need us.

So the next time someone asks you what the point of insurance is anyway, tell them that it’s actually quite simple. The point is to give people peace of mind so that they can live their lives – and enjoy their lives - knowing they are protected.