The adviser as translator

Most consumers desperately need you to explain how their policies work. Because you are much more familiar with the policies than they are, and because people are quite good at hiding how difficult they find reading legal documents, you probably overestimate their ability to cope.  You should plan to provide a simple explanation of any feature of a policy that you sell. If you don’t some of your clients will be grumpy come claim time, and others may be grumpy enough to get litigious.

Here’s why:

I’ve been involved in a tug-o-war recently between a marketing team and a legal team over how to communicate the terms of an insurance policy to potential clients. Everyone has the same shared values: it’s the goal of both teams to ensure that clients understand what is being sold to them, so no problem there.

What was a problem is deciding whether there is a legal difference between saying whether a company “administered” a policy or “runs” it. Or whether a client has “understood and accepts the terms” or if we ask them “Is those terms clear? Are you happy with them?”