Should 'Trauma Insurance' become universally known as 'Critial Illness Insurance', in order to provide greater clarity to the consumer?
- Yes (63%)
- No (24%)
- Don't mind either (11%)
- Not sure (2%)
Loading ...Our latest poll stems from a call by the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman for the industry to move away from using the term ‘trauma insurance’.
The Ombudsman, Karen Stevens, was commenting on how consumers can sometimes misinterpret the term ‘trauma’ within an insurance context; her view being that the term is too generic (see: Advisers Key to Combating Trauma Policy Confusion).
Supporting her argument, Ombudsman Stevens cited two instances where trauma claim complaints were made to her Office, both of which demonstrated a lack of understanding by the claimant about the scope of events and conditions that were insurable and claim-able under their trauma insurance contracts. In both cases, the claimant held a more generic interpretation of the term ‘trauma’.
Do you agree with the Ombudsman? Or do you think it’s a part of the responsibility of every adviser to ensure that no such ambiguity exists, irrespective of which product name or term is used?
Insurers, associations and other industry stakeholders will each have their own view, but from the adviser perspective, would you support a move away from using the term ‘trauma’ in product names and accompanying language in favour of universal use of the term ‘critical illness’?
Given other issues the industry is presently dealing with, you may consider this question to be little more than a distraction, and that it doesn’t really matter which term is used. Either way, though, we’ll report back to you next week…