I heard that old Robbie Williams hit, “Feel” on the radio recently. Ironically, he was playing at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium just down the road from me a few days later and the song was his first encore. People had their mobile phone lights on swaying from side to side. “Feel” made them feel emotional.
Pop culture often triggers my thoughts about the UK protection market and this was no exception. We’ve spent decades getting really good at talking about risk.
Really good at obsessing about definitions, exclusions and claims stats. Really good at showing how clever the policy is and how many comparison engine boxes it ticks. But somewhere along the way, we might have forgotten how to make people feel.
Did you watch last year’s John Lewis Christmas ad? What about an episode of The Repair Shop? Or even the finale of a strong serial like Happy Valley? What do they all have in common? They’re full of emotion. They make you care about people. They make you feel something. And when you feel something, you act. You cry. You hug your loved ones. You pick up the phone.
Instead of leading with logic, we need to lead with humanity. Show the why, not just the what
That’s the power of emotion. And it’s something protection marketing just isn’t using enough.
We’re so busy trying to tick boxes, we’ve forgotten about trying to be real.
Take critical illness cover. According to the ABI, over 90.5% of CIC claims were paid out in 2024 to a total of £1.2 billion. But many people still assume insurers will try to wriggle out of paying.
This is partially caused by the hangover from a time when payout percentages were much lower, but also our ongoing focus on the definitions and what’s not covered. We talk about partial payments, survival periods and cancer grading. Are we handing them reasons to mistrust us?
Now of course some providers use real-life claimant stories in their marketing. People are still talking about the 7 Families Campaign over a decade later.
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But how often do they now reach real customers rather than remaining tucked away on adviser portals and behind website login screens? Some do make it into the national media but it’s not enough.
Compliance teams are nervous. Marketing teams are cautious. So instead, we get safe campaigns filled with stock photos of smiling families and taglines about “peace of mind”.
Can we do more? People don’t buy protection because of the clauses in the policy. They buy it because they love someone. Because they’ve seen what happens when a friend gets ill. Because a story hit home.
Here’s another pop culture reference. Listen to Flowers by Miley Cyrus. It’s a simple message of heartbreak and self-worth that people connected with in a big way. It broke streaming records in 2023. Why? Because it told an emotional story people felt.
People don’t buy protection because of the clauses in the policy. They buy it because they love someone
Protection should be the same. Instead of leading with logic, we need to lead with humanity. Show the why, not just the what. It’s not about actuarial tables – it’s about who’s sitting down at the dinner table. Tell more stories. Talk about love, not just loss. Talk about strength, not just sickness.
This isn’t about being fluffy. It’s about being effective. Emotion drives action. It gets people to take out cover. It gets them to keep it. And it makes the industry look like it actually cares, rather than just calculates.
We’ve done the risk work. The definitions are defined. The stats are strong. Now we need to win hearts. Because protection isn’t about percentages. It’s about people.
Roger Edwards is MD of Roger Edwards Marketing Ltd and does marketing for Protection Review.
