Vicky Hughes:

Good afternoon everybody. A very warm welcome to all of you who have attended an ICMIF webinar in the past and a very warm welcome to all of you for whom this may be a first time that you attend an ICMIF webinar. Today we are delighted to be sharing this webinar from LV=. My name is Vicky Hughes. I’m Vice President of Membership here and I’m delighted to be hosting today’s session. I’m very pleased that we’re joined by Kate Morris, Senior Insight Manager at LV= in the UK, and Kate will be leading today’s presentation.

Just as a quick overview, as a mutual, LV= exists to serve its members and that clarity of purpose is embedded in everything the organization does, from its values and products to the way it governs and engages with its members. Today Kate will share how LV= has developed a member engagement strategy that puts the voice of its members at the heart of decision making, including how its online member community has strengthened interaction and delivered real strategic insight for the business. So with that, I’m very happy to hand over to you, Kate.

Kate Morris:

Thank you very much Vicky and thank you everybody for joining us today and I look forward to talking to you all about member engagements. Just before I started I wanted to give you a little intro to LV= if you’re not familiar with us. So LV= is a leading UK life and pensions mutual insurer. We’ve got a proud history that dates back to 1843 and our purpose is to help people live financially confident lives. And everything we do is to help our members and customers plan for a financially secure future. And we do this by protecting their income while they’re working and then helping them to maximize it when they stop.

We have over a million members and customers who trust us to look after their futures, their families and their finances, and we really do put them at the heart of what we do. Our commitment is to deliver great value and returns for our current members and for the many generations to come. And since 2011, we’ve paid out over 400 million pounds in member bonuses to our eligible with profits members. Our members get access to benefits and additional services which have been designed for times when our members might need a little bit of extra support. We also provide our members with a variety of ways and opportunities to have their say, engage with us and stay informed. This includes our LV= member community, which I’m going to talk to you about today, but also our annual general meeting where they have their opportunity to have their say on the way that we’re running the business and hear directly from the LV= board, and also three member newsletters, which are a regular roundup of news so that they can stay informed with important information.

I wanted to share a little background on our member engagement journey. So in 2023 we made an active change from a member panel to a member community. This significantly increased the number of members who could engage with and who could participate in the activities. We were looking to improve our relationship with members and actively listen to them as we shape the future of LV= and encourage a more consistent and frequent dialogue with a larger group of members. We set a goal to sign up around 2000 members, which we have achieved and have now exceeded, which allowed us to meaningfully engage with a broader, more diverse and representative group of members who reflect our wider membership base.

The LV= member community was designed to build on the program of member and customer insight that we already run as a business and to allow us quick access to a representative group that are open to sharing their views. Members who choose to get involved are keen to help make LV= better for everyone. We also invited all of the previous member panel to join the community and to continue that engagement with us. Today, we have representation across all regions of the UK as well as some customers who live outside of the UK. And our community has a range of ages, life stages and different product holdings represented.

I wanted to share just a very quick look at what our member community looks like for those that take part. We launched this in March 2023 and we worked with a specialist agency called Research Bots. The online site is designed to replicate key elements of the LV= brand and the look and feel also compliments the member content we already have on lv.com. We have continually reviewed and refreshed the look of this page to make sure we keep it engaging for the members. The online platform allows us the ability to engage with members through news and updates and it invites them to have their say, share their views and to help shape LV= for the future through a range of insight activities. The community is open to all LV= members and they can join either via a unique email link that is proactively sent out to them or we have links embedded on the community landing page or on lv.com.

So how does the community work? On the online community, members are invited via email to take part in regular activities. These are optional and whilst most activities are open to all members, we can also target specific groups by either their member type, the products they hold with us or factors such as age or life stage. I wanted to share with you an overview of the types of activities that take place on our community. So firstly we have what we call quick polls and these are simple one question poll, which we’ve used to explore business topics. So it might be whether they’re planning to invest in an ISA or their views on service options. And we also ask them about personal preferences, so what is their view on volunteering or charity donations? And we all go all the way towards lighter hearted topics. So we asked them how they were planning to celebrate the king’s coronation, what they enjoy about a particular season, and also plans for the future. These are easy to engage with tasks and they’re really quick to complete.

Online discussion rooms tend to be used as a follow up for these quick poll topics and they allow members to expand on their views. We can respond to these comments as can other members to explore their views further or to share information back with them. We have seen our members embrace this option providing detailed and well thought out responses, which helps us to understand their views in more detail. We can also use this option for more targeted activities and most recently we ran a discussion with LV= bond holders to understand their motivation for taking out the product.

We’ve also completed 40 more detailed surveys. This is where we can ask more questions on a topic that are linked together. And this has covered areas such as the impact of cost of living rises, particular product literature reviews, customer service expectations, what their reasons were for choosing LV= as their provider and also their views on AI. Within this capability we can use a range of survey techniques to make these varied and interesting to complete, such as text highlighting capabilities or image association tasks where we need to understand more complex topics. We have also used one-to-one depth interviews with members of the community to explore these. An example is where we’re testing longer or more detailed policy documents. And again, we recently used this to create a product case study for LV= bonds.

Our members engaging with the online community has allowed us to get to know them better and it’s really built our understanding of what is important to them, including in their relationship with us. Members describe themselves as fun, happy, friendly, and kind as well as loyal, reliable and trustworthy. Many of the attributes that align with how consumers say they view our brand. Members have told us what they’re most proud of, which is their family, their careers, and achieving their life goals. We’ve also experimented with photo tasks to allow members to share their own images that represent their views on topics such as remembrance events, their plans for a season or their highlights of a year. Members are happy to share their personal experience with us and others showing the level of engagement they have with the community.

So how do we measure what we do? The introduction of this platform has seen increased engagement from our members and participation with the content has been high, but it’s really important for us to ensure that the community continues to develop and evolve over time to ensure it’s meeting both member and business expectations. We set participation targets for each year to ensure that we are delivering activities that members want to engage with. We run an annual survey checking on member satisfaction with the site and you can see from the latest results here that members feel that being part of this community contributes to their positive opinion of LV. Members say that it helps them feel like they can influence and shape LV= and that their contribution’s valued by us.

We also regularly ask members what they’d be most interested in telling us about and which topics they want to see more of. And here we often see investments, retirement planning and LV’s views on current affairs being popular choices. Alongside this we monitor the feedback from internal business stakeholders who use the output of the member activities and this has also been really well received.

So how do we feel our members are benefiting from this approach? As well as feeling valued for their contribution, LV= members benefit from their participation in a number of ways. Each activity they complete gains an entry to a prize draw where a number of winners receive vouchers each month. An important part of the community is LV= sharing back how we’re using what they tell us. So we provide regular newsletters featuring results and findings and explaining how we’re using their feedback to make changes. Members have also been given the opportunity for two-way dialogue with us in 2023 and 2024. We offered members of the community the opportunity to submit any questions they would like to be answered by our chief executive. These questions were answered by David in a video posted back to the community covering areas such as mutuality, products, services, and member benefits. It was great to hear what was on our members’ minds and to be able to share our latest updates with them. This content was also utilized on our member area of lv.com to share with other members the key topics that were raised during 2025.

We have responded to members’ interest in topical content by sharing the views of our chief investment officer following each Bank of England interest rate announcement. And again, this approach has been really well received by them. Overall, this approach has left members feeling more connected to us and to each other as members of LV. As mentioned earlier, feedback is important with members feeling more engaged when they’re being kept informed on how their results are being used, having their questions answered and being kept up to date with our business development. In March 2024 and 2025, we celebrated the anniversary of our community, which included special communications to members telling them again how valuable their insights had been and the difference that that had made to us. We also created bespoke activities and created additional prize draws for members to take part in. Feedback from our members has been really positive and they’ve told us it helps them feel part of LV= and that they like to understand how their feedback is making a difference. There is a genuine appreciation of the opportunity to voice their views and feel informed and involved.

In the next few slides I’d like to share with you some benefits we have seen today as a business. The LV= member community has become a key resource for us and ensures the voice of our members is being heard. Output from the insight activities is a key input into our customer committee, especially the content around the impact on members of the cost of living increases and their customer service expectations. Like many in our industry, we have had a strong focus on consumer duty regulations over the past few years and the community has become a key vehicle for communications testing. We are able to match the right profile of members to various documents and communications and are able to test both through surveying, including the text highlighting capability I mentioned earlier, which allows members to highlight areas they find either easy or difficult to understand, and through depth interviews on a one-to-one basis. As a result, we are in the process of improving documentation across the business. Consumer duty testing is ongoing, allowing us to build in continual improvements to our important member communications.

The example showed on the slide is within our annual report and accounts we include a mutual model graphic to explain how the business is structured. As you can see, it was quite complex at one point in time, so we asked the members of our community to help us develop and simplify this into something that was easier to understand. We were able to let the members who shared their views know the outcome of their feedback, which was positively received and the new graphic was then used on our annual report. Other examples are where we have updated investment information based on what the community have told us they wanted to see. And we’ve also launched a regular digital newsletter to improve member communication with all members, whether they’re part of the community or not.

We’re really benefiting from more in-depth knowledge of our members and this is complimented by the Wealth and Wellbeing research program we have been running among UK consumers since June 2020. Together these build our understanding of how members and wider consumers think, feel and behave in relation to their finances.

So I wanted to share a few strategic examples with you. Earlier this year, LV= wanted to review our approach to social impact and included our member community. In the early stages of this project, research undertaken with members explored their expectations of companies in general and then more specifically of us. The vast majority told us that LV= should have a positive impact on society, that we have a role to play in supporting communities that we operate in and that we should support people from all social backgrounds to succeed. These expectations informed our approach and we launched LV= Together, which sets out how we are making a positive and lasting impact. It defines our approach to social impact and includes our community and charity work. And our goal is to build an LV= that works for everyone.

There are three key elements to this: LV= Together with colleagues, where our people get involved through our diversity, equity, inclusion and wellbeing networks and also the opportunities that arise from our partnerships. Through fundraising and volunteering, they can support causes that are close to their own hearts as well as contributing to our wider activities. LV= Together with communities is where we’ll strive to have a positive and lasting impact through charity support, sponsorship and partnerships. And finally, LV= Together with society where we’re adding to national conversations through research, thought leadership and campaigns. We’ve recently been working closely with the Social Mobility Foundation to support the conversation about opportunities for young people and the impact that social background can have on people’s education and employment choices. Since we launched LV= Together, we have regularly updated the community with our activity in this space and received some great feedback from them on these news items.

One of the key engagement points with members each year is our annual general meeting and we’ve used our community to test the communications that relate to this event to ensure that they’re easy to understand. We wanted to find out which parts of our message resonated well with them and to ensure it was really clear how they could take action off the back of the email that they received. Further to this, we undertook a survey to find out more about what members wanted from the AGM event itself in terms of timing and length of the event and which topics they wanted to hear about. This led to us moving the timing from morning to lunchtime to allow more people to attend online and adding additional speakers. In addition to the addresses from our chair, chief executive and chief financial officer, we added updates from our chief investment officer and our director of customer experience to cover investment performance and how we support our customers and members as well as including this new content. At the event itself, we gave our member community an early view of the agenda and some teaser videos from the new speakers. As a thank you for their views and feedback, we saw increased online attendance at the AGM this year following these changes.

And the final example that I wanted to share was we recently launched a consumer brand campaign highlighting LV= investments. In support of this campaign, we wanted to gauge our members’ views on a series of images, taglines, brand concepts and messaging. And our members were very open and honest with us about their views, ensuring that we made informed decisions and could identify which messaging went best for them and would resonate with other people like them. When the TV, online and podcast campaign was ready to launch, we shared this with members highlighting their role in the development of the campaign and this prompted further views and comments from members. Investing with LV, you’re part of a mutual with over a million members. That’s a million hearts with a million wants and a million stories. That’s powerful. And as a mutual, our eligible members get their share of the profits with over 400 million pounds paid in bonuses. With global investment insights and expert advice, we know, and so do our members, that investing from the heart is stronger.

We’ve really enjoyed the experience the member community has offered us in the past two and a half years, building a greater understanding of members’ needs and getting to know more about their motivations in life. And we feel that both the LV= business and its members have benefited from this approach to member engagement. Key takeaways to consider how you can capture member views and to use them to drive strategic change. Offer your members regular opportunities to share their thoughts and views, and this could be in a similar approach to our online community, but there are many other options in terms of research activities and events to consider. Bring the voice of your members to key business decisions at the start of new initiatives. We will now always consider if there’s an opportunity to seek our members’ views as part of the process and how we might be able to utilize their unique insights. We’ll also seek views on anything new post-launch to continue that conversation. People from across our business now see this insight channel as a useful business resource and we have supported a wide variety of teams here at LV. Consider opportunities for members to engage with senior employees. We have seen great engagement from members to being able to ask our chief executive questions and also to the profiles and videos that we have shared about our key senior people. And finally, share back with members how you’re using their feedback. Our members have repeatedly told us that this is key to them feeling their views are valued when they see the evidence of the difference that can be created.

In summary, at LV, we are really looking forward to continuing this engagement with our members and we’re very grateful to the members who are taking their time to participate and engage with our community and for helping us to create a better LV= for everyone. Thank you very much for listening.

Vicky Hughes:

Thank you so much Kate, for your insightful presentation and for sharing LV’s journey. I think we can all agree that that was really valuable. So once again, thank you so much Kate on behalf of ICMIF and to all of you for attending and we look forward to seeing you at a future session very soon. Enjoy the rest of your day or evening as it may be depending on where you are in the world. Thank you and goodbye