About the conference

And so it’s off to Manchester for the Health and Care Conference 2012.  As birthplace of over twenty Nobel prize winners, host of the 2002 Commonwealth Games and home of the BBC, Manchester has many attractions to offer locals and visitors alike.

This vibrant city is home to not one, but two Premier League football teams, is an important contributor to British literary and artistic heritage, and has given us bands such as Oasis, The Stone Roses, New Order, The Smiths and Take That. An exciting location for our 2012 conference!

The theme of the conference is “Putting the customer first”. We operate in one of the most sophisticated protection markets in the world. With the changing regulatory environment, economic challenges and ever increasing commercial and competitive pressures, it could become easy to lose sight of what (or should I say “who”) is most important. We are in the business of protecting people. Putting the customer at the heart of what we do will ensure we continue to deliver products and services that are relevant to our customers and meet the needs of those that need our protection.

As John Russell, President of Harley Davidson said: “The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.”

We are delighted that Dr Eamonn Butler from the Adam Smith Institute will be opening the conference as the keynote speaker. The Adam Smith Institute does exceptional work in the areas of tax, privatisation, and public service reform and Dr Butler is key to their work. As such, he is an excellent speaker to open the conference and will set the scene by discussing the economic challenges we face and how these affect our customers and their attitude to protection.

Our plenary sessions will establish the wider commercial, regulatory and political environment that impacts on our industry and our customers. We will hear from experts on a range of topics including:

• a market view from the ABI and the current challenges facing the industry
• NHS reform and how they are putting the patient first
• panel debate on Long Term Care and the opportunities to meet customer funding needs
• an insight into customer behavior and the emotional factors that lead them to buy protection

We have increased the number of workshop sessions to bring you a wider range of high quality presentations. The workshops will cover current thinking on regulatory challenges such as Solvency II, the Gender Directive, the changing distribution landscape and what these hold for health and care providers. The health and care working parties will be updating us on the progress they have made over the year, and we will also be hearing about some fresh and exciting thinking on areas such as predictive modelling, customer engagement and segmentation, how we can use social media to reach customers, as well as lessons we can learn from overseas markets.

Of course, the opportunity to network remains an important part of the conference and we have catered for this in the programme.  Similarly to last year, the first night will have a relatively free format. Following the keynote address, there will be an informal drinks reception and welcome dinner at the conference venue with a cash bar to follow. The gala dinner on the final night is at The Monastery, a spectacular venue in Manchester – please feel free to dress up if you wish! The after dinner entertainment promises to be a fantastic laugh.

As always, Hannah and the event management team have done a great job and I would like to thank them, and the programme committee for all of the effort they have put into this year’s conference.
We look forward to seeing you in Manchester!

Natalie Moses
Chair, Health and Care Conference 2012 programme committee.