The Key Learning Points:

1. The importance of making the insurance industry the career choice for young people, by providing realistic insight into a financial services career.

2. The misunderstanding amongst young people that a degree is necessary to have a successful career in financial services, and practical advice on how to kickstart a career without a degree.

3. How the demographic of the adviser market has stayed relatively stable over the past decade.

Today on the Risky Mix Podcast we’re joined by the intermediary director from AIG Life, and a lady who is well known in the life and health insurance industry, not only for her successful career but also having shared her personal health story last year. She was awarded Woman of the Year in the intermediary support category last year, at the Women in Protection awards. Welcome the wonderful Vicky Churcher! 

Vicky starts by talking us through her career journey, leaving school at the age of 15 with few qualifications. Her first role in financial services was as a bank clerk at Lloyds bank and while working there she began to understand about managing money and financial wellbeing. Vicky moved onto the customer enquiries desk and explains that she saw first-hand the impact of debt and vowed never to get into that situation: “That would never happen to me and 35 years on I can honestly say I’ve always looked after my finances.” 

A few years on Vicky decided to make the move up north: “I swapped my suit and banking job in the city for wellies and a VW Jetta.” Taking her first role in sales, Vicky was tasked with selling pigloos - igloos for piglets to protect them from the harsh Yorkshire winds. “I loved it and I realised that sales was definitely what I wanted to do!” After accepting that the job offered few progression opportunities, Vicky joined Allergan pharmaceuticals, then moved to Bupa in 1996, where she worked for 16 years and had her three children. Vicky left Bupa in 2001 when the business was acquired by Friends Life and joined Ageas Protect, which at the time was a new company and Vicky saw them as a “good opportunity to create something.” Ageas was acquired by AIG and today Vicky is the intermediary director at AIG life. “It’s been a very wiggly career journey, as most are, but I wouldn’t have changed any of it given my time again.”

The conversation moves on to education and the options available to young people coming out of school. Vicky believes that financial services is still an industry that most people “fall into” because it’s not spoken about at school as a career choice. Young people don’t really know what the industry offers and what a career might look like. Vicky doesn’t think that young people should feel pressured to go to university: “If you don’t go to university, it’s fine, it’s not the end of the world.” Vicky explains that AIG recruits lots of young people straight out of school and the business offers all protection specialists the opportunity to become qualified financial advisers, funding qualifications and study materials over a three to four-year period. 

The conversation moves onto the adviser market and Vicky explains that it’s not really changed in the last decade. We have the same number of financial advisers as we did in 2017, most are male and the average age is mid-50s. Vicky adds that of the 26,000 advisers in the UK, 20% plan to leave the industry or retire in the next 5 years and that by 2030 it’s predicted that only 18,000 financial advisers will be working in the industry. Part of this Vicky believes is the perception that buyer behaviour is expected to change, and become more digitally-focused, which is part of the reason that new advisers may not be entering the space but for her, the main issue is that this career option is not being spoken about enough at schools.