Protection News Weekly Roundup: Top Stories You Might Have Missed – 20-01-2025
Earlier this month we had one of the best Protection Forums we have ever had. It was about Addressing harm and vulnerability options from separating life policies and included Ian Lomax from the Charity Surviving Economic Abuse (also known as SEA) and Matthew Connel from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). The CII announced some very important guidance for advisers this morning so, look out for a more detailed summary from me.
We will be publishing part two of this forum event on Thursday, which includes none other than Johnny Timpson OBE and Professor James Davey of Bristol University who provided a fascinating update on some of the legal issues around changing these processes. If you’re an adviser or indeed if you work for an insurer on the product or proposition side, having a detailed understanding of the points raised in this discussion should be invaluable.
Another major highlight of last week was Matthew Chapman launching his training services for advisers. You can find full details here including how to get a massive 60% discount on the £249 retail price of the premium training course. It’s great value at the retail price, but you can find the Protection Guru discount by clicking on this link.
Turning to our regular content, on Monday we explored a favourite subject of mine looking at Family Income Benefit – A Comprehensive Guide to Securing Your Family’s Future . It has long been my belief that Family Income Benefit is one of the most underused ways to protect families cheaply and effectively, and I know I am not alone in that view.
On Tuesday our latest Protection Guru, Jason Coleman (aka JC), explored Determining the best fit for clients between Single and Joint Life plans. This is a crucial topic to understand both in the context of optimising client benefits and economic abuse issues as raised in the Forum I referred to above.
The same day Amanda Newman Smith explored How do adviser referrals to protection specialists’ work. This includes some great insight from David Mead from Future Proof, Alan Knowles from CURA and Scott Taylor Barr at Barnsdale Financial Management.
On Wednesday JC turned to an issue that is becoming a regular discussion point with so much attention on mental health in the post COVID world, Is stress covered within income protection plans?
In the months ahead we will be including more coverage on the strengths of those insurers who are supportive of the work of Protection Guru. We started this process this week by looking at some of the key elements of Zurich’s Protection Proposition
This continued on Thursday we provided a similar focus on HSBC who have been a refreshing counterpoint to the declining numbers of insurers in the market.
Given their huge financial strength they may warrant more attention in the market from advisers.
To wrap up the week in addition to looking at Matt Chapman’s great new training as referenced above, JC looked at What are the differences between guaranteed, reviewable and age-banded premiums?
Matt got lots of other great news coverage last week including commentary in
Money Marketing https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/news/training-courses-launched-to-improve-standards-of-protection-advice/ and Professional Adviser https://www.professionaladviser.com/news/4396822/training-course-launched-wealth-advisers-address-protection-gap
Turning to wider subjects last week I should have mentioned an article I wrote in Money Marketing on the new Data Use and Access Bill currently going through Parliament. In addition last week I also penned a further column in Money Marketing on my technology predictions for the industry this year. Several of these relate to Protection so should be of interest.
Finally, can I highlight our Consumer Duty Alliance Protection Forum on Thursday this week from Noon to 1PM on Why Lasting Powers of Attorney are a Crucial Element of Financial Planning. It is increasingly clear to me that LPAs are actually at least as important as trusts for protection especially if you are going to arrange single life plans and I would encourage everyone involved in giving protection advice to attend. You can obtain tickets from the above link.
