COVER profiles 25 of the leading champions of the protection space that have previously or are currently changing the market for the better, as chosen by our advisory board of industry experts.
Tom Baigrie is the founder and chair of LifeSearch, a business that every week helps over 2,000 people protect themselves and their families against the financial catastrophe that death or disability can cause.
Baigrie started LifeSearch in 1998 and gave it the name because it searches out the best covers from all the UKs life insurers.
What achievement are you most proud of from your career in protection?
I migrated to the UK aged 20, you'd call me an economic migrant these days. I couldn't get a proper job, as I had no qualifications or even a National Insurance number, but I could work selling life insurance on a self-employed commission only basis.
In large part, I created LifeSearch with a ‘customer first, people second, profits third' culture, because that is what I feel is right for a financial services retail business.
LifeSearch is a long way from perfect, but it's on a well thought through path towards true excellence and I believe we serve as a beacon for those who try to do things right.
What is the most significant motivator behind your career in protection?
LifeSearch was founded in anger at banks selling protection to their trusting customers and charging four times as much as I knew was right and boasting to the market about how much money they were making.
My first marketing plan was a billboard outside every branch of Midland Bank saying don't buy from them, buy from me at half the price! I was luckily talked into a PR and press advising alternative and I've never looked back, but I'm still angry at how badly financial services, including protection, is sold and marketed today.
What has been the biggest challenge you've overcome?
Myself. I'm not great at the small print or accounting, and while small businesses can thrive on passion and energy, businesses that employ 400 or more need a much more analytical and thorough approach.
I've been through many iterations of growth, very successfully promoting as much as possible from within, but LifeSearch is better off now that our next steps are being led by people much cleverer than me.
How do you believe you are helping bring about positive change in the protection market?
I've been talking truth to power in our market since 1998. Everyone can see my key points are valid, they just don't know how to make the transition to live by them. But I'm trying ever harder to explain that to them just now. One of the reasons for appointing Debbie Kennedy as my new chief executive was to give me more time to do just that.
What would you like your legacy in protection to be?
It's the ongoing progress towards doing things right across the market, in claims, in service, in product development, but especially in distributor honesty and transparency. There is fair struggle in our market, between getting customers to protect themselves properly and getting them to do something quickly and easily.
I'd like my legacy to be the converting of those misleading sellers - who never mention income protection when selling critical illness, for example - into simplified advice givers.
Why do you think you've been included as a protection champion?
Back in the noughties I led a team that lobbied the FCA to keep protection out of their Retail Distribution Review, to avoid the destruction of intermediation in our market. As a result of our successful efforts, they shifted protection from the investment rule book to the GI one and our market continued to exist.
I founded, with help from others and the PDG, which does so much to raise standards today. And throughout, I've addressed the industry each year, from the perspective of perhaps its leading adviser strategist, challenging and praising, criticising, and acknowledging.
What one book do you think everyone should read?
I'm currently finishing the late Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy, which is the most remarkable writing of my lifetime.
But maybe the book for everyone should be an educational thriller that makes one smile throughout, that would be Ivor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow.
What's your go-to karaoke song?
David Bowie's incredibly creative stardom flowered through my youth and never faded. So, it's Space Oddity - "Ground Control to Major Tom" - obviously!
Who would you like to play you in a movie about your life?
Well, if you've ever seen Gangs of New York or Let There Be Blood, then you might spot why it must be Daniel Day Lewis! Especially as he is a truly great method actor who could reveal the intense complexity and hidden trauma in my character. Not.
What's your favourite comfort food?
I love a braai, I love Fish Pie, or anything with good wine!
Who was your childhood hero?
It should have been Nelson Mandela or Steve Biko, as they are my heroes now, but you ask about when I was only a child, so it was my father. Or when he was being too much a disciplinarian to be my friend, it was a tough, battling cricket skipper called Eddie Barlow, who had a genius for winning when the underdog.
What's your biggest pet peeve?
I think most of the protection market knows that! It's people who sell innocent consumers the wrong financial products just to get rich quick, not serve customers best. You can do financial services right and get quite rich enough, it just takes a bit longer. And then claims that are not paid as swiftly and caringly as possible. That's unforgiveable.
