I was taken aback at a reader’s comment on another blog pertaining to the distribution of life insurance in NZ... She said;
“In the end, the public will determine how it accesses [life insurance], but it IS clearly an advice process that they want - as evidenced by the number of “web-based” insurance sales outfits that have come …. and gone.”
“Clearly advice based”???? “... come and gone”???
Gimme a break! Too much for me to ignore, this was my response;
I’m not sure where you’ve sourced your information regarding how people want to access life insurance products (name withheld), but I need to point out there is an entire generation of young adults in their late twenty’s and thirty’s that are very happy to get online and manage their own affairs. And in the next 10 years we’ll see Gen Y come into the life insurance market and these people have never known life without mobile phones, i-Tunes, Google, chat rooms, internet banking, online ticketing, YouTube, TradeMe… the list goes on.
For this generation, (sometimes referred to as Generation C) web-based life insurance will be a perfectly natural purchase. The only reason some consumers need advice is because insurance companies have overcomplicated their products and because their old-fashioned distribution methods appeal to older audiences. You underestimate the new, younger, smart, internet-savvy consumer and you overestimate the need for advice at your peril.
There are several new on-line life insurance websites, some run by brokers and one by a life insurer that are busy gaining momentum and are well placed to ride the new consumer wave. I absolutely agree with your last point though... “In the end, the public will determine how it accesses these products”.
