Richard Thomas talks to Angela Faherty about the importance of quality service provision in the insurance sector
Richard Thomas has worked in insurance all his life. He joined the industry straight from school and spent the next 25 years working his way up through the ranks in both the general and health insurance sectors.
Thomas's major calling however, came when he was headhunted to set up a long term care (LTC) business. A joint venture by Hambro Assured Care and Guardian, Thomas spent, what he calls, "the next eight years failing to sell long term care insurance" but admits he learned a great deal from the experience.
Making changes
"One of the most crucial things I learned was that when someone's mother suddenly announces she cannot get up and down the stairs or in and out of the bath without help, the family worry about what to do. However, the tragic truth is people don't know where to go or what to do to solve this issue," he says.
It was this acknowledgement that prompted Thomas to establish Red Arc. Seeing a gap in the market for an independent care advisory service providing information, advice and support to elderly people suffering from a disability or illness, Thomas, and his partner, David Criddle, set about making changes.
"With Red Arc, the aim was, and still is, to catch people at an early stage of illness or disability, so that we can help them prolong their ability to live independently in their own home.
"One example of what we have done is arrange for an elderly woman to be seen by a specialist community trained nurse in her own home. The nurse would identify what she could and couldn't do and draw up a care plan, so the family would know what to do and where to go to get help, advice and support," he says.
Part of the visiting nurses' care plan would involve identifying packages of care and specific items of equipment that would help people manage better so they could extend their period of independent living at home. "After all," he says, "nobody wants to go into a home."
Once established, Thomas took the service out to Friendly Societies, which he says, was an obvious market as the majority have an ageing customer base. "The concept of giving the members access to our care services was a very good fit for Red Arc. But it wasn't until we tried to take that concept into the wider financial services community that we started to get people looking for variations on the theme."
Since its launch in 1998, Red Arc has extended its remit to include other areas of illness and disability. As a result of the work it had already been doing, Red Arc was approached by Swiss Life in 2000 and was presented with a challenge to grow its business.
"Swiss Life, which was very much the market leader in group critical illness at that time, approached us and pointed out that the same provision needs to be applied to employees in group critical illness plans.
"There were employees who needed information, help, advice and emotional support when they were told they had cancer or were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It wasn't confined solely to the elderly community," he says. The meeting led to Red Arc branching out its services and it hasn't looked back since.
There are currently four nurses who work directly for Red Arc and are at the centre of what Thomas calls the Red Arc cog. They are crucial to the way the operation is run and are responsible for sourcing services from suppliers throughout the UK and Ireland.
Through its network of contacts, Red Arc has access to approximately 50,000 nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychologists and counsellors nationwide. It also has agreed service standards with each client, based on time, quality and experience, which pre-determines how the service standards are delivered.
Enhancing service
Thomas is keen to stress that Red Arc does not get involved in the treatment of patients however, so there is no cross over in the service it provides and the treatment received on the NHS.
"The issue for us is to be aware of the gaps in the NHS and fill these by extending and enhancing what the NHS and Social Services can do for people. There is never any conflict. We just provide an extension of what is already available in the mainstream," he says.
While Red Arc works with a number of groups including affinity schemes, employers and federations, it also has contracts with insurers, which Thomas believes can help the industry tackle some of its issues regarding getting people back to work.
"Some insurers take the view that they want to introduce our service when the claim is made, before any decision has been taken about its validity. This is important, as while insurers get claims that may ultimately be turned down, it doesn't change the fact that a person has cancer and is having to deal with the traumatic nature of that diagnosis," he says.
Thomas is also confident that service providers such as Red Arc can help move the insurance market forward. "It is becoming increasingly apparent that people are starting to say the only key variant with an income protection, critical illness or term assurance product is price, and that is not really a healthy basis for competition. So what we are trying to do is introduce some real added value services that can be mixed and matched with the aspirations of the insurer," he says.
Aspirations
A key development for Red Arc was accompanying protection provider, Bright Grey, on 12 of its regional roadshows earlier this year. A Red Arc nurse gave a series of seminars about what the service entails and Thomas was astounded by the outcome.
"In a way, I had always expected IFAs to be a slight barrier to this form of service. Mainly because unless they fully understand how it benefits their clients, it can be perceived as an extra – a bell or a whistle – that might be taken into account if there is a tie-breaker situation between a couple of providers. But, having made them aware of the benefits, I think we converted them to the cause," he says.
Thomas says that having got some of the industry on side, he hopes that added value services like those provided by Red Arc, will become par for the course in the future. "I think those who understand how the service works will embrace this as part and parcel of the cover, not as an optional extra that gets tacked on at the end. It recognises that in reality, people will go through a whole range of emotional issues before thinking about making a claim," he says.
Going forward, Thomas says the next Red Arc milestone is to provide help to a million people within the next 12 months. "Our vision is to help as many people as we can and to focus attention on areas where Social Services and the NHS can not necessarily provide. At the moment we are helping just over 500,000 people, that is a lot in a short space of time, but there are many more who still need our help," he says.
