The Intermediary – May 2025 - Flipbook - Page 76
In Profile.
Q&A
Jessica Bird speaks with Phil Jeynes, head of individual
protection, UK at MetLife, about product innovation and
the road ahead for the business
P
hil Jeynes started his career as a
mortgage and protection broker,
qualifying as an independent
financial adviser (IFA) in the early
2000s. His career moved through
various roles, including at Direct Life & Pensions,
Vitality, UnderwriteMe and Reassured.
Running throughout his career, Jeynes notes,
there has been a seam of innovation and progress,
in one form or another. For example, Direct Life
was “very innovative around automation of
applications, and taking the burden away from
IFAs of what – at the time – had only just
stopped being paper application forms for
life insurance.”
From this, and then the early stages
of Vitality’s launch into the UK,
Jeynes’ career has followed a similar
pattern, with businesses bringing fresh
perspectives and new solutions.
He says: “When I look back at my CV
it’s all about being as close to the cutting
edge of the protection industry as possible. I’m
always attracted by customer-centric innovation
– businesses and propositions that are doing
something new in the market.”
In March 2025, Jeynes took over as head of
individual protection, UK at MetLife, with a view to
bringing this experience to bear.
He says: “My experience as an IFA shapes
everything – I’ve always got an eye on the end
customer, but also the distributor in the middle
and that end user, I want to make applications as
painless as possible, because I remember having to
navigate all the ways of interacting with insurers.
“It’s about simplicity, transparency, and a
real partnership. When we communicate with
our customers, we’re communicating with
our distributors’ customers as well – we’ve
got to be on the same page. A partner, rather
than a supplier.”
Innovation in the market
While Jeynes has always had an eye on innovation,
he explains that this market has some nuance to it,
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The Intermediary | May 2025
PHIL
JEYNES
whereby progress for the sake of it is not the end
goal. For example, life insurance is a product that
is easy to understand and resonates with many
customers, meeting a genuine need, and that has
“been the case for a couple of centuries.”
Some might argue that it is not worth fixing
what is not broken, but Jeynes sees it differently:
“What my experience has taught me is that this is
a brilliant, resilient market – whether it’s Covid-19
or financial incidents, the life insurance market
always endures and serves its customers really
well. Nevertheless, it’s ripe for innovation. It’s
a little bit old fashioned still. We’ve moved
from paper to digital, but there’s nothing
super innovative.”
This translates into the products
themselves. These have improved over
the years, but do not differ much from
those seen in the early 2000s when
Jeynes was starting out in the market –
they have been “augmented and tweaked
rather than reimagined.”
This, he adds, leaves room for innovators
to come in and – while respecting the things
the market does well – make some interesting
changes to ensure it is fit for purpose for the
modern customer, and the modern broker.
Jeynes says: “That’s what excites me – we’ve got
a brilliant market that serves its customers well,
but there’s still massive opportunity.”
While the market “doesn’t need to be ripped
up and started again,” Jeynes points to growing
segments of society that are not being served.
For example, with a fifth of the UK workforce not
born in this country, the different needs of an
increasingly diverse customer base have to be
accounted for.
“We can be a little fresher in our thinking, and a
little bit more innovative in our products and how
we deliver them,” says Jeynes.
For example, he notes that traditional life
insurance policies tend to focus on catastrophic
life events, but there is a gap that MetLife is
looking to fill, which caters for customers’
everyday needs as well. There is inspiration to be
