After winning the 'Dedication to Protection' award at the recent Protection Guru event, Emma Thomson said she hopes it will inspire more people to promote the profession.
Reacting to her win, Women in Protection chair and director, Emma Thomson said: “It was a huge, huge surprise but absolutely wonderful to win. I’ve done a huge amount over the last 20 years in the market and it was very special to have that recognised.
“I hope my win will inspire other people to do everything they possibly can to be as dedicated to protection as I, and many others, are."
One aspect of her work that Thomson mentioned as being recognised was her role in Women in Protection.
“Women in Protection was created to try and help to court women to work within our industry and to raise awareness of the fact that our market needs to be more diverse,” she explained.
“The network was also created to raise awareness about the fact that more women need to buy insurance and how we, as an industry, can be working harder to try and reach more women. For example, the way advisers engage with clients, or how we market or trade products.
“That’s something that’s been really important to me over the past seven years, creating that network.”
Thomson also identified her work with the Protection Distributor Group as being “really important” explaining this revolved around increasing customer outcomes.
“I’m a very active member of that organisation, particularly when it comes to claims charters,” she added.
Finally, Thomson also mentioned her work with advisers, highlighting her continued promotion around why protection is so important, which she described as having been “critical” for many years but “particularly in the past five”.
However, Thomson said that her award “isn’t just me”, instead shining a light on the whole protection industry, stating “we should all be very proud of the work that we do because it makes a very positive difference”.
Thomson also acknowledged that, while it is important to recognise the achievements of the protection industry, it is equally as crucial to recognise that “the work is not yet done and there is still a lot more that we can be doing”.
tom.dunstan@ft.com
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