Why we are celebrating progress in the protection industry
I want to start my end of week summary by highlighting Rob Harvey’s analysis earlier today exploring a range of information on our Protection Guru Awards lunch.
These include the various award categories for individuals and companies as well as how advisers can vote in the insurer categories. Also, information on the prestige awards that will be a key part of the lunch.
In creating these awards, our primary objective has been to take a fresh approach and especially to recognise the new talent and different ways of working within our industry. We particularly want to celebrate the growing number of new advisers working in protection and the important work being done by both Mortgage and Wealth advice firms to address protection needs. We know the new FCA consumer duty looks likely to force far more focus from wealth and mortgage firms on protection but there are organisations doing this already and they deserve credit. Candidly we want to create awards that won’t just be won by “all the usual suspects”, although there are categories for them too.
It’s great to see so many advisers voting for the companies they believe deliver the best propositions for various types of client’s needs as part of our process, rather than another set of product awards. If you haven’t yet voted in the provider awards or considered if you are eligible for either an individual or company award, please do look at the links above and act accordingly. Please remember that to vote you will need to be registered to access the full Protection Guru information service, which is available free of charge to advisers. If you are not already registered, please do so here.
We couldn’t make these new and different awards happen without the support of our sponsors, so I want to say a big thank you to platinum sponsors Aviva, Scottish Widows and Zürich, our Gold sponsors Sesame Bankhall Group and Guardian and our Silver sponsors Legal & General and Royal London, for their generous support.
Further sponsorship opportunities continue to be available, so if you are an insurer, service, or technology supplier to the protection market and would like to participate in what is already shaping up to be a great industry event do please get in touch with Adam Higgs or me to discuss the opportunities that remain.
There has been a broad collection of changes announced by Royal London in recent weeks. These impact various parts of their propositions, so we have taken the opportunity this week to look at a couple of areas, not just in the context of how Royal London now look, but also how the wider market now compares. Our objective is to stimulate thought and discussion around if advisers should be rethinking who their favourite companies are for particular features and products.
Amanda Newman Smith began this analysis on Monday by asking Do Royal London’s recent improvements bring anything new to children’s funeral cover? In Wednesday’s insight Amanda looked at How Royal London’s improvements to additional critical illness pay-outs stack up. We will be looking at the impact of more Royal London changes in the wider context in coming weeks.
In other studies this week on Tuesday, Amanda investigated Second Medical Opinion Services – how insurers compare. Given the high level of interest in Business Protection currently, on Thursday, Amanda examined Which insurers offer legal support to business protection clients.
Benefits Guru
Over on our sister Benefits Guru site on Tuesday Kat Mitchell investigated Workplace Pension Providers – understanding service standards and Thursday Kat turned her attention to Understanding the implementation process.
AdviserSoftware.com
This week Adam Flowers has examined two relatively new propositions PortfolioMetrix looking at the functionality behind their WealthExplorer proposition and Digital Wealth Solutions client portal.
Also this week he looked at one of the longest established software business in the whole industry, Mortgage Brain, exploring four propositions from them, The Key practice management system, client portal, Anywhere sourcing system and their Classic sourcing system.
Apparently in London at least we are due for warm temperatures even if it is a little cloudy this weekend, so I am hoping to get out and about. Wherever you are I hope you have a great couple of days.
