Curse of Knowledge
Stop saying something is “common sense”.
We, risk and insurance professionals, have been doing this work for so long that we forget it took us years to understand topics that most people find complex. What feels like common sense to us can be completely new for someone who does not work in the industry or to someone who is brand new to this field.
There is a concept called the “Curse of Knowledge,” and it goes something like this:
The more expertise you gain in a particular subject, the harder it is to imagine what it is like to have absolutely no knowledge on that subject, and because you can’t imagine what it is like to have no knowledge on the subject, you begin to lose empathy for those who struggle to understand concepts that feel like common sense to you.
It’s like trying to patiently wait for a toddler to put on their own shoes when you’re late for an appointment. You have had decades of shoe tying experiences! You can literally tie shoes with your eyes closed! You will want to just sit them down and tie their shoes for them, but if you do that they won’t learn.
The same goes for insurance education. I often hear people tell me that insurance is complex, and that consumers don’t want to learn. I just can’t accept that. It’s not that they don’t want to learn, it’s that you are suffering from the Curse of Knowledge and you do not have the patience to teach. That is a very different problem that is completely within your control to fix.
If you follow my content on LinkedIn and TikTok, you know that I use humor to make risk and insurance topics approachable and accessible. My goal is to make sure someone who has no background in this field can have a basic understanding of the concepts. Most of the videos I create follow the Feynman Technique to ensure the concepts are easy to understand. It’s a lot of work, but I believe it’s important work, and I’ll continue to do it. We need to stop saying that consumers don’t want to learn this stuff.
We just have to put in the work to teach it.
