Vitality Overcoming ‘present bias’: The key to closing the protection gap?

Getting clients to see the value in protection cover isn’t always easy, especially given the intangible nature of traditional insurance. However, rethinking the way protection works is giving advisers an opportunity to overcome this barrier, writes Greg Levine, in the first of our Sales as a Force for Good article series.

We’ve all done it: the alarm goes off in the morning and we hit the snooze button. You know that getting up later means less time to get ready but the idea of longer in bed is too good to resist.

Present bias – where people favour immediate reward and gratification over longer-term gain – often leads us to make decisions that can work against us later on.

Whether it’s clients failing to make adequate financial plans for retirement, seeking quicker (and potentially risky) investment returns or foregoing the expense of insurance against some future, unforeseen risk, advisers will be all-too familiar with present bias and people’s pursuit of instant gratification.

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