Toughen up!? Let’s not miss the point about resilience

A problem shared … Alex Wise reflects on the importance of mutual resilience for the insurance profession.

Resilience… the word for our times. It’s a big part of the business vocabulary, whether that’s facing up to and getting through the challenges of the pandemic and the impacts of climate change or moving into the post-Brexit future and tackling the omnipresent threat of cyber, to name just a few. There is also the way firms are supporting their employees, to help them cope, achieve balance in their work and home life and look after their well-being in difficult circumstances.  Resilience is a word that sums up exactly what so many of us feel about the future. Whether we all can “recover quickly from the difficulties” as the dictionary tells us, is harder to predict. 

Last week, BIBA launched its new manifesto on the resilience ticket and rightly so. Brokers like so many businesses have had to cope with the impact of Covid-19 on their own businesses while supporting their clients. If there is one thing that stands out from the situation we are in now, it is that resilience must be a shared and mutually beneficial endeavour. The insurance industry plays a pivotal role and needs clients and customers to understand and engage to ensure that what is on offer is relevant and fit for purpose both now and in the future. BIBA’s call for brokers to join in the discussion to enable its new manifesto to live and breathe, and deliver resilience, is exactly right.

There is a job to do to rebuild confidence and trust in the face of the pandemic-driven business interruption debacle, the hardening market and wider questions about the future role and value of insurance.  Governments (national and local), private and public enterprises, home and property owners, motorists and a diverse range of professions and companies from space to mining need a resilient insurance industry to provide the risk transfer solutions to protect their assets, intellectual property and help make their great ideas a reality. Yes, that comes at a cost, but it also needs understanding and partnership to make it mutually beneficial and deliver what’s needed to make us all more resilient and to thrive in a new normal.

The resilience ‘challenge’ is a significant one and the reality is quite sobering. The FCA recently published a survey that revealed that an estimated 28 million adults are vulnerable in the UK, a position heightened by widespread redundancy, reduced working hours and low financial resilience, which the regulator points to having increased throughout 2020 by 25% to over 14 million.

Many are predicting falls in their household income in the coming months and a quarter expect they’ll struggle to make ends meet with many saying they are likely to take on more debt. The impact on emotional and mental health and well-being as a result of the pandemic is also high. Most recent evidence of its toll comes from the Chartered Insurance Institute that believes 60% of insurance professionals have struggled with their mental health during the pandemic.

There's a lot that still needs to be done to address the industry’s reputation, to inform and educate buyers about the role of insurance. At the core of achieving this is engagement, and successful engagement comes from, amongst many things, effective and relevant communication. There are some exciting initiatives driving greater resilience and sustainability which have insurance at their core. Let’s share these and explore how we can achieve mutual resilience.