From colouring-in to credibility: The future of re/insurance marketing

Last week two comments on LinkedIn got me thinking specifically about the overall credibility of Marketing in the global (re)insurance industry. One from an old team member, and the other a post I’d shared from a Fractional CMO.

So I’m taking a break this week from my ‘Why insurance needs Marketing more than ever’ series, and turning the tables on the marketers, the skills gap and why marketing is so blimmin hard in this industry.

Why insurance marketing is so hard

Let’s be honest, marketing in global re/insurance is difficult. It’s under-resourced, misunderstood, and takes place in one of the most complex industries in the world.

In my experience, teams can’t deliver strategic marketing when they don’t fully understand the product or the market. And many marketers don’t, not because they’re not smart or capable, but because they’ve never had the right training or exposure.

Insurance isn’t that intuitive. It’s a web of client risks, global dynamics, and niche products. To understand it well, you have to see the butterfly effect. Maybe that’s why my autistic brain loves it, I connect dots fast and remember things most people forget.

But let’s face it: even many of the traders in the industry can’t explain how it all fits together. And that’s where the trouble starts.

The capability and confidence gap

Part of the problem is training.

Less than 25% of UK marketers are formally trained - and in my personal opinion (sorry), even some of those who are don’t seem to remember any of it.

Mine is burned into my brain. Do it consistently enough and it becomes second nature. My entire marketing philosophy centres around one really simple but powerful framework: SOSTAC. If you can apply that, you can solve almost any marketing challenge. Even if you’ve forgotten the BCG Matrix, RACE, PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT or TOWS… with SOSTAC, you’ve got the tools to build a robust, relevant plan.

And it’s not just marketing training that matters. Too often, I see marketers shy away from building their industry knowledge or levelling up with skills like finance, operations, and governance. But commercial fluency is what gives marketers real influence - it’s hard to shape strategy if you don’t speak the same language as the people setting it.

Training matters because it gives you confidence and credibility. I’ve sat at boardroom tables and successfully argued for major changes because I could clearly articulate how marketing decisions would impact the balance sheet. That ability doesn’t come from flair, it comes from training and understanding.

Everyone thinks they're a marketer

Let’s address the elephant in the underwriting room.

Insurance marketers are constantly challenged by brokers and underwriters who genuinely believe they can do marketing better. It’s not always a bad thing, but it’s so draining. And I get it: it’s not malicious, they’re just exposed to marketing more often than we’re exposed to underwriting and broking. But being exposed to something doesn’t mean you can do it professionally.

As I’ve said in many a meeting (with mixed success):

“You wouldn’t let me walk into Lloyd’s and underwrite a risk, so why do you think you can do what I do?”

Promotion is less than 10% of the discipline of marketing. Yet it’s the part everyone sees.

Let’s go back to SOSTAC. That’s six stages of a marketing plan, and only one of them is about promotion. The biggest and most important part? Situation Analysis. That means:

• Market landscape

• Competitor analysis

• Product positioning (and shock horror, Pricing review)

• Internal capabilities

• External factors (PESTLE)

• And, depending on how you structure your plan, customer/prospect insights

None of that’s optional. It’s the foundation of strategy.

The strategy problem

But here's the kicker: even skilled marketers struggle to build a solid strategy if the business doesn’t have one.

If you work for an FMCG, car manufacturer or luxury brand there’s usually a crystal-clear objective - whether it’s market penetration, portfolio expansion, or launching a new category. You understand the commercial goal and how you’ll get there. That’s strategy.

In insurance, we’re often handed a GWP target with no roadmap, no positioning, and no commercial narrative. That’s not strategy. And it makes marketing - the kind that drives real impact - really hard.

The short-termism in insurance, living quarter to quarter, is killing us. We never have the time to demonstrate our value. Binet and Field coined the term ‘the long and the short of it’. We’re stuck in the short of it. Marketing should be roughly 60% brand (the ‘long of it’) and 40% sales activation (the ‘short of it’) if a company wants to see results.

That said, the marketing strategy for a business that wants to grow through acquisition looks very different to one preparing for a sale, or one focused on organic growth. But if marketers, especially senior ones, don’t have a seat at the table where these decisions are discussed, they can’t design relevant plans. The message never trickles down. And marketing stays the colouring-in department.

So how do we fix it?

For marketers:

• Get trained. If the Level 6 CIM Diploma feels intimidating, do Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA – hell, just do it anyway because it looks fun! But don’t just do it for the letters, use it. Try a short course in Finance in the Boardroom too – or just read Corporate Finance for Dummies.

• Be curious. Most people in this industry are giant geeks about what they do. Brokers and underwriters love talking about their business. Ask them what clients are saying. Get context.

• Don’t be afraid to look stupid. They’re the product experts - you don’t have to be. But you need to be the marketing expert. In a company with 1,000 brokers and 6 marketers, own your space.

• Understand your stakeholders. Ask them how they like to receive information, are they detail-oriented? Visual thinkers? Big-picture strategists? What helps them look good to their boss, the client, the market?

• Stay commercially aware. Read the top insurance story every week. Ask yourself: what does this mean for our business? Could it impact our marketing?

And for leadership:

• Expect more from marketing. Push your team to deliver more than events and decks. Ask them how their work actually contributes to growth, retention, reputation, recruitment.

• Give marketing a seat at the table. Not just in project updates - at the exec table. Because if Marketing understands the business strategy, they can amplify it. If they don’t, they’re flying blind.

• Reconsider your hiring process. Senior Marketers need to be challenged by senior people in the business. If you don’t know what good looks like then at least get the CFO/COO to ask about ROI and operational efficiencies.

I’ve threatened to write a book on this…

…maybe I should.

Moving Marketing from colouring-in to credibility isn’t just about perception. It’s about capability, access, and alignment. It’s about expecting more from the function, and the people around it.

Especially in broking - imagine what could happen if you genuinely did things differently.

What would your retention look like if clients stayed because of brand loyalty, not just inertia? What if marketing wasn’t just a support function, but the reason they came, and the reason they stayed?

(walks away singing Money, Money, Money by Abba)

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Next time I'll be back on the 'Why insurance needs marketing more than ever' series looking at the impact of M&A in the market.