A new free Learning & Development Hub to help protection advisers and other news from this week

Normally my weekly round-up is about what else has happened in the protection industry, but this week I want to highlight an extra feature that we have added to our service, the Protection Guru learning development hub. Last year Protection Guru produced over 250 studies to help advisers better understand the detail of protection products. So far this year we have already produced a further 50. This is an enormous resource to help advisers, but we recognise the need to be able to get to the information you need very quickly when you need it. Using our new hub advisers should be able to get to our analysis of each subject in four mouse clicks (or four taps on a mobile device). For simple directions on how you can use the hub see click here for very simple step by step directions.

There are lots more features that we will be adding to this area soon and your feedback on the new service would be really appreciated, please drop me a line to share any thoughts or suggestions.

Another significant announcement this week was the move by LV= to extend the age limits at which they would offer cover to new customers. Judging by the popularity of Steve Berry’s analysis on Thursday exploring Life cover for older clients who offers what.  This is a subject that is really resonating with advisers. As Steve identifies in his study, far more customers are now continuing mortgages beyond the age of 65 so it’s very relevant to understand their protection options. Aviva, Royal London, The Exeter and Vitality are all highlighted for praise by Steve, although as he points out it is really important to understand the differences between their various offerings.

Also, yesterday Amanda Newman Smith looked at relevant life sum assured limits how insurers compare. There is a huge amount of data in this study and on this occasion AIG are identified as the standout leader, although closely followed by Aviva, Legal & General and Zurich, with a special mention for Vitality. Find out why from the link above.

Wednesday’s study looked at how income protection providers help with a hospital stay. This time it was Aviva who took the plaudits although AIG, Royal London and Vitality all took credit, and Cirencester Friendly were noted as providing help when a client only needs to be in hospital for as little as three nights.

Aviva and Royal London took the main plaudits in our analysis of which insurers provide the best estate administration support, although LV= and Scottish Widows also provide some support. This looks like an area where more insurers could improve their propositions and partnerships.

At the beginning of the week we looked at income protection deferred periods who offers what LV= and The Exeter were the providers who must attract attention although AIG, British Friendly, Cirencester, Holloway and Royal London had merits.

This week we also had contributions from Drewberry’s Tom Connor on both Protection Guru where he authored a piece on What are the benefits employees want and how can advisers help them get them? and also on our sister site Benefits Guru where he looked at similar issues in the context of Group Risk and provided new employee benefits insights for advisers to take into their next client meeting. In the coming months we will be significantly extending the context of benefits to include significant content on Group Risk so, if this is an area that is important to you, it’s worth registering to receive their emails too.

Also on Benefits Guru this week, Jason Green looked at auto-enrolment tools who is helping who? This summarises which workplace pension providers are doing the most to help employers with their auto enrolment duties, where Aviva and Scottish Widows are the standout providers. Jason also wrote a further study designed to help understanding the auto-enrolment implementation process for workplace pensions. This is a very detailed study and not one I can easily summarise here, so it’s well worth clicking on the link above.

Finally, a reminder that we are less than two weeks away from the #LifeSearchAwards2021 if you have not already got you ticket, click here to make sure you can join the party. This is shaping up to be the protection industry event to visit in lockdown so you do not want to miss it.