Flipping the Script on Public Distrust
At the outset of this year, leadership in the insurance industry outlined the top challenges facing insurance sales reps in 2023. And as a motivational insurance speaker and former financial advisor, I know it is crucial to flip the script when it comes to communicating with your clients by recognizing how each new challenge represents the unique opportunity to forge stronger client connections and a deeper sense of loyalty.
Among the 20 issues to watch in 2023, authors noted challenges in healthcare, extreme weather conditions, inflation, geopolitical risks, cyber risks, technology, growth and workplace safety.
Included in the challenges was also the increased effect of “Social Inflation,” far different from economic inflation:
“With widespread public distrust of large corporations and public entities, jury awards are continuously increasing, heavily affecting businesses and insurers. Insurance pricing models are constantly trying to catch up to these experiences to help forecast the future as social inflation becomes the new normal.”
The latest major market research studies in healthcare alone, showed 62-percent of Americans distrust that the healthcare insurance sold to them will cover their basic needs. More than 6 out of 10, feel their insurance is “just good enough.” The distrust spreads to all areas.
Insurance CEO Daniel Schreiber in a CNBC interview recently said this about commercial and personal insurance:
“Perhaps the costliest problem in insurance is distrust. People don’t like their insurance companies. They don’t trust their insurance companies. It doesn’t matter how much money the insurance company has; people don’t believe they’re going to pay them when the day comes.”
This situation is more than a problem with distrust; it is a calamity for anyone involved in insurance sales (and ultimately to companies driven by sales; i.e., everyone). In a digital world of AI, social media and target marketing, trust, the most basic of all human social interactions seems to be undervalued. Friend, what are you doing about it?
Many agents are content to do the basic and the expected, but how many have the mindset to do the advanced (going beyond) and the unexpected? Far too many are content to let well enough alone or to annually send out spiffy calendars, embossed pens, etc.
Your clients don’t need well enough; they need you, and they need connection. They have valid concerns that step outside of the realm of digital, are you addressing them? What you do for your clients is potentially supplying the most important product they will ever need.
They need you to build that trust.
To reach Scott Burrows, Motivational Insurance Industry Keynote Speaker, contact Scott today at: 520 – 548 – 1169 or through this website.
