Phil Jeynes is Head of Account Development at PruProtect
Last week my five year old son came told me that he needed £1 to cover the cost of a walk he was going on with his class. He did not know where the walk would take him, what they planned to see or do on the way or whether the outing was linked to a project or topic they were covering.
The cost was so small that I readily paid up, but parents among you will recognise that examples like this are more and more common and contribute to a huge amount of incidental, as well as essential, expenditures we make on behalf of our children’s education.
Whilst our first rate education system remains free, associated costs such as uniforms, stationery, PE kits, swimming lessons, lunches, trips, charity sponsorships and the like, combine to create an estimated annual burden of nearly £700 for a primary school child, rising to around £1100 a year for a secondary school pupil*.
This is before we consider the price of attending university which, as has been widely covered in the press over recent months, could be up to £9,000 per year in tuition fees with the average student expected to leave their degree course owing £25,000.
Given this topic’s prominence in the press and the overwhelming importance we parents place on our child’s formative years, it is surprising that 68% of parents buying Protection cover do not consider making a provision for the cost of their children’s schooling, in the event that a parent dies or becomes seriously ill**.
One contributory factor for this oversight has been the lack of a product designed to specifically meet this need for consumers, which is why we have launched our unique, first to market Education Cover; a plan created to deliver a fixed termly benefit should a parent die or suffer a dread disease, paying our right through their school life and even covering the cost of University.
A private school option is also available, to indemnify the even greater costs of educating a child in this way.
Everyone’s priorities in life differ. For example in a recent news article about the possible closure of some BBC local radio services, one member of the public said “a world without Lancashire Gardeners’ Question Time is not one I want to live in”. Parents, though, will always place the wellbeing of their children at the top of their list.
Adding a small amount of this Protection to a client’s purchase is not just about increased commission, it is about making the cover more relevant and more personal to that customer, leading to a more secure sale and one less prone to lapsing in later years.
*source : Cost of schooling report, 2007
**source : Consumer testing, Immerse-PruProtect, 31 January 2011
