Reducing early cancellations of Life Insurance

A large insurance brokers sells thousands of life insurance policies each month through its call centres. However, they were facing a costly challenge: a significant number of customers were cancelling their policies just days after purchase. To get to the root of the issue - and find actionable solutions - they partnered with us. 

We conducted a comprehensive multi-method behavioural diagnostic to understand what was driving early cancellations. This involved qualitative and quantitative customer research, call listening, a review of their comms and interviews with stakeholders.  

We discovered that, rather than being a case of “buyers’ regret” (which was an assumption held in the business), customers were experiencing a “loss of confidence”. Customers were confident this was the right product to buy when they were speaking to an agent, but became less confident after the call. 

We identified the Driving Factors behind this loss in confidence, which included:

• Conversations with peers and family: Customers were failing to defend their purchase decisions to, and being influenced by, their friends and family (social proof)
• Sense that they hadn’t ‘compared their options’: Customers finish the call without feeling content that they have sufficiently "shopped around", despite having done this when the agent enabled them to compare options
• Confusion around the policy: customers felt uncertain about key features of the policy, resulting in doubts that they had made a good purchase

These forces were exacerbated due a lack of reassurance being provided after sales. Our  review of post-sales communcations (email, SMS and welcome pack) revealed:

• Lack of confidence building and reassurance: comms weren’t helping customers feel good about their decision
• Information overload and confusion: there was a failure to provide clarity around key features of their policy 
• Lack of expectation setting: next steps (e.g. "what happens now?") lacked clarity

We provided 9 solutions to boost customer confidence, focusing on three key areas: 

• Communications: focusing on pre-sale brand awareness and post-sale confidence 
• Sales Calls: introducing an additional section to the call that seeks to unearth any  underlying affordability concerns (through the "accusation audit" method)
• Organisational Processes: focusing on improving handover notes between the sales and retention teams, to provide a more personalised customer experience

So far, we reviewed and revised 32 separate post-sale documents (across emails, newsletters and even SMS) – which were all approved and launched on 1st August 2025. The broker will be running a controlled test to see if the revised behavioural-informed messaging achieve a reduction in early cancellations, with results due in January 2026.