Journalists are a cynical breed. They tend to look for the bad in everything, rather than emphasise the good.
It is a charge that is often thrown at me (along with the bread rolls) when I attend financial adviser shindigs, and of course I put up my hands and admit: 'Guilty as charged'.
Yes, much to the annoyance of my mother, cynic is my middle name – hence, Jeffrey Cynic Prestridge (JCP) rather than Jeffrey John Prestridge (JJP).
Occasionally, when the planets are aligned, I shift out of cynical mode and praise a company for some good deed or initiative. Yet invariably, it comes back to haunt me, leaving me with egg on my face.
It happened a few days ago when I heaped praise on insurance giant Zurich UK for introducing empathy training for staff who deal with customers making a claim on a financial protection product.
When I read the press release, published to coincide with national customer service week, it seemed like a rather good initiative. Claimants, often with serious illnesses, deserve all the empathy in the world.
Pete Sanderson, Zurich’s protection big cheese, said all the right words. "When someone is making a claim, it is most likely that they’re at their most vulnerable," he explained.
"It may have been they’ve just been diagnosed with a critical illness or even lost a loved one. We know this can be a stressful time, so it’s important that we’re there for them at their time of need, both emotionally and practically."
I described Zurich’s focus on empathy as "splendid" and said it should be a given, not just in the financial protection arena but right across the financial services industry.
Yet my praise did not go down well with everyone. Some accused me of kowtowing – and rightly so. In other words, throwing away my cynical cloak and falling for the company line. Something journalists are not meant to do.
One of the loudest critics to come out of the woodwork spitting like a cobra was John Helfgott, a partner of Watford-based financial planning company Highwood. Its offices are a stone’s throw away from Vicarage Road, home of Watford Football Club.
Helfgott has worked in financial services most of his adult life and advises clients with investible wealth of at least £250,000. Now 65, he’s seen it all, the good and the bad.
From a business perspective, he is rather unimpressed with the quality of service currently provided by many product providers, resulting (for example) in intolerable delays getting clients’ pensions transferred. Staff shortages are to blame, he says, as is a lack of technical know-how.
But it is when he started telling me about his personal dealings with Zurich that I wished I had kept on my cynical hat.
