Document sans titre
Could you present
yourself and your company?
Fortis is an international
provider of banking and insurance services to personal business and institutional
customers. Our company delivers a total package of financial products and services
through a variety of distribution channels including major affinity groups.
I have responsibility for affinities and partnerships within Fortis UK where
we have established a strong reputation for developing partnerships with a wide
range of affinity groups.
I am also Chairman of Affinity
Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis,
which has been active in the affinity market since 1995. In Affinity Solutions,
we have built a team of professional and experienced consultants who are passionate
about affinity marketing and combine creativity with a pragmatic approach. Our
team’s background spans an array of industries, including insurance, not
for profit, banking, commercial finance, and travel and life stage sectors.
We have been particularly active in the mature market, and have worked with
Help
the Age, The Royal British Legion, Age
Concern, RIAS, The Daily Telegraph and other UK specialists in the
sector
Fortis has been active
in the over 50’s market for a considerable time, primarily through its
subsidiary RIAS which now insures approximately 1 million people in this age
segment. As a group we have nearly 2 million policyholders aged 50 and over,
and we are completely committed to understanding the needs of this growing segment
of the population.
You have an agreement
with Age Concern
to offer insurance to their members. Could you explain?
In 2005 Fortis entered
into a 10 year agreement with the major UK charity Age Concern. Age Concern
is the largest organisation in the UK serving the interests of the older population,
and has had a track record of providing relative products and services to older
people for many years. One of their specialism’s is the provision of low
cost general insurance, and the charity selected Fortis to be their insurance
solutions provider for home, motor , travel and other general insurance products.
The charity is responsible for marketing the products and services to the older
population, through a network of approximately 200 major age concern groups.
These are located in all the major towns and cities throughout the UK and provide
access to older people in their local communities. Fortis acts as the manufacturer,
underwriting the insurance products and providing all the back office operations
and administration through direct computer links into all of the major Age Concern
locations. This is a true partnership, and the key personnel from both Fortis
and Age Concern meet on a regular basis to ensure that the scheme runs smoothly
and to plan future activity together.
How has the partnership
developed and how successful is it?
Age Concern was already
offering financial services to its customer base before it entered the partnership
with Fortis. What was important for Fortis was to ensure that Age Concern maintained
a competitive position, particularly for the less well off older person who
is not able to afford to pay very much for their insurance cover. Also as this
is a nationwide scheme, Fortis had to ensure that it maintained a reasonably
competitive in most areas, including some parts of the country where there are
higher risks e.g. of flooding. It was vitally important that Fortis worked with
Age Concern to ensure that no substantial part of the older population was excluded
from the scheme, although obviously some people have to pay more than others,
depending on the overall level of risk.
Fortis also had to recognise
that new technology was needed to link in with the local Age Concern groups,
and a new software system was installed to allow good communications and transfer
of data between the local Age Concern group and the Fortis operation. These
improvements in administration have left more time for Age Concern personnel
to concentrate on the customer and this has been shown in the increased insurance
traffic, particularly in areas such as travel insurance where there is rapid
growth as more and older people find time to take more holidays. Fortis is also
developing more internet applications recognising that older people are beginning
to transact business on line, even if this is still a lower percentage than
the general population.
More than half a million
people are now insured through the Fortis Age Concern partnership across the
various products
What is important
for an insurance company such as Fortis to take into account when dealing with
older customers?
Obviously, Fortis already
had quite a bit of experience through its RIAS operation and was well prepared
for some of the issues, which are particularly relevant to the needs of older
customers. In particular, you need to recognise that you cannot limit the length
of calls, as generally speaking older people like to spend more time discussing
their insurance than other age segments. The insurer also needs to ensure that
people are properly trained, and in this case, Age Concern provided people from
their organisation to come and train Fortis personnel to ensure that they understood
how to handle the particular needs of this age segment. Generally speaking call
centre staff may well be in their 20’s dealing with individuals who can
be 80 plus! Fortunately the relationship is often like that between a grandparent
and a grandson or daughter and Fortis has experienced very few problems in this
respect.
With claims handling, it
is often the case that older people will suffer more hardship, as was the case
in 2007, when large parts of the UK were subject to severe flooding. Fortis
made sure that people were available to handle the claims quickly and payments
made without delay, often in situations where older people had to be moved out
of their homes and temporary accommodation had to be found for them. Indeed,
Fortis won a prize for their claims initiative of the year, for the use of a
digital pen, which was used to transfer information immediately from the scene
of the claim, to the Fortis HQ to help speed up claims handling.
It is also important to tailor cover for older people, and the Age Concern policy
has been developed over a number of years to properly reflect the particular
needs of older people.
Finally, Fortis and Age
Concern recognise that their partnership needs to work with older people, and
not to discriminate against them. Many insurance policies still have severe
restrictions when people get older, particularly in areas such as travel and
health insurance. Age concern is committed to work against age discrimination
and Fortis supports this objective.
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