Welcome Back! The 2020 Relaunch of IPTF’s 7 Families Campaign

Another family in the campaign is the Thornley family. Husband and wife Nikki and Phil decided to go on a motorbike tour of Europe to celebrate Phil’s 40th birthday. Sadly, a collision with a car before they’d even managed to leave Scotland left Nikki in hospital for almost a year and eventually wheelchair-dependent.

There’s a full list of the seven families in the campaign here.

What Did the 7 Families Campaign Do?

The 7 Families campaign paid out a tax-free income for a year to each of the seven families the campaign worked with, mimicking a short-term Income Protection benefit they would have received had they held a policy at the time of their illness / injury / accident.

This made a massive difference to each of the families; the Pickford family, for instance, was able to use the funds to pay for specialist rehab for Paul.

At the time, the campaign had three aims:

• To raise public awareness of the financial impact of long term illness or disability
• To help seven real families who are facing financial meltdown
• To demonstrate the value of independent living support, rehabilitation and counselling, through trying to help get people back to work.

7 Families 2.0: The 2020 Campaign

4 years after we last heard from the 7 Families Campaign, it came back with a bang in February 2020!

It will be producing a series of short videos throughout 2020 focusing on the original seven families they paid the funds to back when it all began, following up on how they’re doing after all this time.

The videos will highlight important topics such as mental health in recovery, the role of a financial adviser, the importance of counselling, the all-too-common ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude which often prevents people from taking out income protection, as well as challenges such as returning to work and various other issues surrounding healthcare and insurance.

The campaign is aimed at financial advisers, but is available for anyone to use freely as they see fit — hopefully it will serve to further its previous fantastic work in raising awareness of the benefits of Income Protection!

7 Families 2020: The Drewberry Verdict

“We are delighted to see the return of the 7 Families Campaign, especially as we were supporters of its original run,” says Tom Conner, Director at Drewberry.

“It made such a huge difference to seven families up and down the country who wouldn’t have had a payout from an insurance firm as they were uninsured at the time they became ill, so that is to be welcomed in itself.

“Not only this, but it helped put real faces to very real accidents, disabilities, illnesses and injuries. The pervasive ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude is perhaps the biggest challenge we face as advisers today when it comes to spreading the word about the positive impacts Income Protection can have for clients, but the campaign proved hugely important in persuading people that, very sadly, the risks we all face every day are far too real.

“This is a campaign with sticking power — it’s still talked about 4 years after its first incarnation ended. We’re therefore looking forward to see the new material it will produce over the next few months and can’t wait to see the inventive new ways it will continue to raise awareness of what we here at Drewberry view as an essential for all working adults: Income Protection.”