MassMutual Sparks Conversation Using Social Media
New platform attacks the enormous life insurance sales gap via Facebook and multi-media tools.
Virtual Water Cooler, October 20, 2011
Massachusetts Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual) has launched a new "Why Life Insurance?" consumer awareness program on Facebook designed to get families thinking and talking about their financial futures. MassMutual says this social media effort enlists the help of kids to underscore the importance of life insurance, and was developed, in part, to address an industry-wide challenge: the record low in life insurance ownership.
MassMutual says "Why Life Insurance?" is the company’s first initiative hosted solely on a social platform. The combination of entertaining videos, interactive tools and informative content was developed and executed through a collaborative program involving MassMutual's advertising agency of record, Mullen, in close consultation and cooperation with Genuine Interactive.
The program highlights the key benefits of life insurance and seeks to confront common barriers to ownership, such as the anxiety that comes with discussing death, prioritizing financial responsibilities, and dispelling the notion that life insurance can be expensive. The videos feature children taking control of the discussion by questioning a life insurance agent and quizzing adults on their knowledge of the topic. MassMutual says its Facebook fans will be provided with links to financial planning tools, helpful tips and a platform to engage in real-time conversation.
MassMutual says "Mutual Matters"—an online news source providing candid, practical information that helps people make good financial decisions—has launched as well.
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Comments (1)
An empirical observation of the last 30 years in multi-line insurance sales, is that the greater the in incentivization for women to remove the men from the home, the less insurance is purchased in all lines .
It appears that two key factors are at work.
The first is that now there are two residences and increased personal costs from the same or less income.
The second factor is that men are suddenly moved out of not just the home, but out of the family.
The main mechanism has been No Fault divorce where innocent men are moved out of the home and then treated very punitively and subject to very onerous orders above and beyond child support and alimony.
These men, whom no one can find fault, are frequently middle to high income earners.
Men have been the major purchasers of Life Insurance.
It appears that the application of feminist ideology into social policy with courts and legislatures has cut the legs off of the current life insurance paradigm.
Men in their family home, at all income levels, were the ones to purchase what they could afford to protect their wife and children from daddy's possible demise. It seems that no one else is interested, outside of commercial applications, in buying life insurance for personal reasons.
As one former life insurance client stated after a "No Fault" divorce, "I have to pay her attorneys for her court actions so she could take my children 3,000 miles away. I can no longer afford to pay the premiums."
Car insurance, after a family goes through divorce, goes from a multi-car, traditional full coverage policy to two liability only policies.
Home ownership is one of the first things to go. At best the woman will sell the original family home and move into a smaller home. If it is a purchase, the premium is less. If it is a tenant dwelling, very rarely does the woman buy tenant coverage. The man will invariably be relegated to a small apartment with used furniture and will be unable to afford any coverage not mandated by law.
Only major national family policy changes will improve the personal lines insurance marketplace. Until the issues of incentivizing single motherhood and no fault divorce punishing innocent men, we can plan on personal lines premiums dropping dramatically.
Even now, one of the greatest sources of default on home loans and consumer credit (major players in the non-underwriting P&L sheets for insurance companies)was divorce. 85% of which is filed by women with over 90% of those filed a "No Fault" where everyone admits the man has no fault. We may want to look more closely at the links between liberalized divorce for women tied into the onerous treatment of the demographic most responsible for purchasing and paying for our premiums.
Posted by: Stan R | October 24, 2011 12:59 PM
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