What are the right segments to target for personal private medical insurance ?

Looking to find the clients most likely to need advice on private medical insurance ?

When working with my IFA and Accountant introducers one of my roles is to help them find or isolate those current or prospective clients who either have personal private medical insurance and need advice or who are likely to want it in future.

Obviously there is no 'catch all' category of PMI clients or magic bullet for marketing purposes but I often advise them to consider looking at client around the age of 50 to 55 and upwards. They can be potentially good clients for a number of reasons.

Firstly if they have personal cover at the moment there is a very good chance that they will be paying too much for it. Broadly clients are more likely, statistically to have cover with the big four insurers : BUPA, AXA PPP, Aviva and Vitality Health. All four insurers have historically had very active direct sales forces. Any plan sold direct will likely not be currently supported by the insurer in a proactive way and if there is no other broker or intermediary involved then the plan has almost certainly been auto-renewed over time and the client will most likely be paying too much.

One consideration is previous and current claiming patterns if we are looking to move a client with existing cover. Switch underwriting is a complex area but in many cases it is possible to move people between insurers and I take this up on an individual client depending on their exact circumstances.

One other advantage of PMI clients in the age range is that being older they will tend to be a bit more senior in their work roles and therefore we might also be able to discuss PMI (and indeed other insurance covers) for other senior managers or directors within their business.

Whether we are looking at existing policy holders, new plans or even group cover the good thing (in the context of a medical insurance advisory process) is that clients of this age have some solid life experience when it comes to their health and that of their family - this means that when painting a picture as to the reasons why they might want medical insurance the job is halfway done before we even speak to them.

If you have any prospective medical insurance clients you would like to discuss with me or even a general query on the PMI market just call or e-mail using the contacts below.