Everyone's doing it. Apart from the insurance industry… On either side of politics, from comics to consumer companies, from Donald Trump to JK Rowling. People are using social media to engage with their audiences. Even our stodgy old political parties use social media extensively. Even more critically: they respond!
If I post a comment on a twitter stream about Air New Zealand, or Typepad, or Orlando Airport, they respond – usually within hours, often within minutes. I mention those three, because I have, and they did. Good on them all.
But the insurance industry, so wrapped up in itself, complaining about how regulators and ordinary folks don't understand, and yet – when consumers offer to engage on their terms, insurers are nowhere to be found. Take Susan Edmunds' recent article about non-disclosure. Look at the comments section and you'll see lots of this:
- Insurers don't pay claims and don't want to
- Insurers don't refund premium payments on avoided policies
- Insurers don't ask clearly for the information that they want
- Insurers don't take into account forgetfulness
- Insurers don't take into account information already provided
- Insurers don't take into account information they collect from your GP, they would rather hold onto it as a reason to deny a claim later
All of these are demonstrably false, wrong, or not fair on the insurance industry. Examples could be given, links provided to statistics, financial reports, and even videos of claimants posted (like the excellent Mind-the-gap series by the FSC). Why is the industry choosing to pass up this opportunity to engage with their audience? There are few exceptions: nib's CEO Rob Hennin has directly commented on LinkedIn posts, and in other media, Partners Life staff have directly commented on Goodreturns posts.