Today Aviva launch a new educational app called ‘Mid-Life MOT’ designed to help consumers better understand and improve their work, wealth and wellbeing planning.
Having successfully run an internal training programme for two years for their own staff, followed by use with a small number of clients, Aviva have digitised the process and are now offering the MOT health and wealth style service to anyone, via their new app which is available in the iOS and Android App Store’s.
The app invites a user to complete 30 questions focusing on their approach and knowledge in three key areas of wealth, wellbeing and work.
This will then generate an overall MOT Score out of 100, as well providing the user with separate wealth, wellbeing and work scores.
This is supported with a 5-step checklist of suggested actions along with external links to reading and educational material from third parties such The Money Advice Service, GOV.UK, Pension Wise, NSH and the National Careers Service.
The app is free, and typically aimed at anyone aged 45-60. It brings together a range of publicly available external resources in one place to help consumers take positive actions to increase their preparedness for mid-life and beyond.
This is not a fully blown wellness tool, but it is a very good starting point to get people to begin to consider their wealth and health side-by-side. Currently, the app does not populate any individual client specific data, such as an existing Aviva pension should you have one, in fact there is no personal data captured at all. We would suggest that in future iterations of the tool Aviva may wish to consider using personal data to get a more bespoke outcome, or even having this feature embedded in the My Aviva app.
Alistair McQueen, Head of Savings and Retirement at Aviva, comments:
“Aviva’s internal Mid-Life MOT programme has been successfully running for over two years, providing guided education to those in mid-life in the management of their wealth, work and wellbeing.
We don’t claim the Mid-Life MOT app provides all the answers. But we believe it could act as a helpful nudge towards greater control over their futures. At a time of such uncertainty, we believe that a sense of greater control can be of value to millions in mid-life.”
Although ‘Mid-Life MOT’ has not been designed specially for the workplace market, we think this could work very well with an Aviva workplace pension, with group risk scheme members or as a tool for employers to pass to their employees as part of a wider wellness package.
Overall, the concept is simple and easy to follow. The introduction of gamification and personal scores is good; and the checklists and external links provide valuable practical tips and knowledge. Aviva could take this much further should they wish, but as a free resource this will no doubt start to get people taking about the wealth, health and wellbeing more, which can only be seen a positive. It is important to stress that this app can be downloaded by anyone, you do not have to be an Aviva customer so well done to the company for providing a free resource that can help everyone.
