Continuing our series recapping our October Protection Forum, this post focuses on the conversations around communicating with clients, underwriters, and improving the pre-underwriting process.
We do annual review calls to see if anything has changed or occurred that would affect the client’s policy. Often clients don’t have time to look at protection properly during the mortgage process but a few months down the line they’re more able to engage with the protection conversation.
Paul Reed:
We don’t do the yearly statements like I know Emma and a couple of others on the call, too. But we do annual review calls with our customers. So it’s really just that simple concept of touching base with them, checking if there’s been any change in situations, whether that is married, separated, had children increase or decrease in mortgage borrowing, alteration and employment status or work benefits. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else on that call that we go through, I think that’s broadly it.
And all of those points are really first and foremost, just to make sure that the policy is still watertight for what they need, because the worst thing is that situations change. For whatever reason, they might not be eligible for that policy any longer, particularly on IP, but also, realistically speaking, it does create additional sales opportunities for us then where we can.
You know, a lot of our clients are on a mortgage journey, so it may well be that they just took out a real raw level of cover for moving into the property just because they didn’t know what their bills were going to settle down that when they were first moving in. But after six months a year, they’re more settled so they know what their outgoings are. They know what their disposable income is. And actually now we can look at those other areas of cover that we might have saw value in, but we just couldn’t afford at that time. And then we look at what else we can do for them.
But I know you guys and I’m trying to think, who if rolling back a few sessions now, probably six months a year ago of these before, but I know others do these annual statements that go out, I think, is that right?
Emma Astley:
We just keep in contact with them just to update them, not to spam them. It’s all like educational and reminding them and letting them know what we’re doing as a family as well. But we also chat a lot to them still online. So sharing their little businesses and sharing their stuff on Instagram and things. So we’re always in contact chatting away with them, which makes it enjoyable as well as looking out for them.
We always get in touch with anniversary statements every year just to find out if anything has changed.
Adam Kaplan:
Whilst I’ve been listening to you guys, I’ve actually just sent out about 25 anniversary statements. So it’s like what we kind of say, “Look, if your circumstances have changed a lot,” I’ve got one up in front of me now, “Let us know so we can ensure that you cover still suitable.” This year alone I’ve got 10 new cases. I’m just looking at my application. I’ve got 10 new cases off the back of these emails. Personally, I don’t get the time to ring everyone. Ultimately, we should be ringing people. When you’ve got 4,000 clients, that’s quite difficult.
But what it does do is, with The Exeter, for example, I will send them a copy of the health-wise document and I’ll just summarise the benefits. So it’s just a reminder that we’re still here, this is your anniversary statement, which I’ll attach because most of them come electronically now. Here’s a reminder of the benefits. But however, if anything has changed in the last 12 months, get in touch so we can make sure your cover is still suitable and we do get good business off the back of that.
I actually like talking to the underwriters and trying to figure out how to get the best cover for our individual clients even if it can be an arduous process.
Emma Astley:
Do you know what? I actually quite enjoy this bit of it, and I think we do get enough support from the underwriters. Yeah, it could be easier where we didn’t have to ring up, but I think the more we do as advisers, by obtaining all the information, the diagnosis, ask the client for discharge letters, diagnosis letters, the last readings, the follow ups. I think that gives us then a stronger conversation on the phone with an underwriter. And if there is anything that we missed, we can then get the underwriter to ask us that so we can then go back to the client.
So to me, I think it’s better speaking to an underwriter because every client is different. And yes, we’ve got systems that could help pre-underwrite things but actually speak into an underwriter. I think is is a lot better for the client and gives us a better outcome on how they might be underwritten in terms offered. So I quite liked that process, even though it can be long winded.
I try to collect all the information underwriters might need during the fact-find.
Chair: How do you know what questions to ask?
Basically, just by doing the fact find and getting to know the client. Take the information down: when it was diagnosed, what condition, what are the symptoms, medication that they’re on, their last check-up, the last readings. I try and just collect as much as I can that the underwriters might ask.
I think it is an experience thing, really, but there can just be a generic thing of just when it was diagnosed, what medication, and then you can have a good, strong conversation then with the underwriter and then relay that back to the client so they know what’s coming. They then know the journey and they’re more likely then to proceed with the acceptance if it’s rated or exclusions because they know what’s coming.
We have a decision-in-principle tool we use which helps understand what’s going to happen during the underwriting process.
I mean, it is a really good point. One of the things that we’ve done, we haven’t really got a generic list of what providers are going to do in certain circumstances. We’ve invented a decision-in-principle tool for protection, which is pretty straightforward. It’s just an interactive PDF that we send out to customers that goes automatically back into each individual provider.
And the providers within twenty four hours come back to us with what they’re going to do with that case. We do four hundred DIPs a month now and that is just helping us understand what’s going to happen. But what we’re finding is that it’s really hard to understand what the provider is going to do without actually going through this type of process. It’s not as slick as like an UnderwriteMe, I know that. But it’s going in to a physical underwriter who is looking at what it is they come back to us with the exclusions, the ratings, the declines and we’re doing that before we’re applying for the case.
And if that fails, if they decline, then we go into Vita, into Paul’s business and they place about 50% of the cases that our panel declines. So between us, we’re probably doing as much as we can. It’s a little bit clunky, but that’s what we’ve put in place. We launched the DIP last October and it’s working really well for us.
Our advisers have a ‘Sick-opedia’ document which is used as a reference point for all sorts of different conditions. Most pre-underwriting tools from insurers don’t have anything for more complex conditions, and you generally have to talk to people directly to learn how that will go.
To be able to assist with those questions– it’s a bit coarse, but our advisers between them, they actually created a central document within our server, which is called Sick-opedia, and they use that as a reference point for all different conditions, the relevant questions to ask, likely outcomes from some of the insurers or which insurers tend to specialise in that area. But it’s really difficult, and I think experience does override a lot of the desires that we would want from insurers to create a pre-sales tool. Because, you know, many, if not most, insurers now have an online decision-in-principle tool, which is really helpful.
But if you come up with a client that’s got, I don’t know, transposition of the great arteries and you’re having to try and say, “right, well, which insurer is good for that?” Well, your basic underwriting tools don’t accommodate for that and the questions that you would ask for transposition of the great arteries. Does it affect the right side? Does it affect the left side? Which is the worst side of it? The question set that you’ll have for that will be very different to a client who’s got diabetes, which will be very different to a client that’s got back pain. So the questions are very, very different.
And to try and get an insurer’s tech to accommodate for all eventualities like that, it’s probably unreasonable is the honest answer. They have the resources available, but a lot of the time it will come back to speaking to an individual because some of the conditions are so intricate that actually you need to be armed with all of the relevant questions to be able to get the right outcome. And I think for us, whenever we do that pre-sales underwriting, 92% of our cases go live because we know and we’ve asked those right questions at outset to be able to get the right indicative decision. But a lot of that does just come with experience. And you know, if we were to talk through every medical condition that is out there in the world and expect all of that to be in one central place, it’s just not going to happen. And to look at that across 20 plus insurers of how they then view each of those disclosures, as much as I would love it, and it would certainly make everyone’s life on this call a whole lot easier– it’s just not realistic.
So I think it does come with experience. It does come with learning about the different conditions as time goes on. And if you’re not too sure, pick up the phone. It may well be that it is on UnderwriteMe or is on these pre-sales tools that are lots of the insurers have. But for those weird and wonderful and wacky disclosures, then often it will revert to speaking to someone about it.
We used to have a guide for general outcomes for common conditions.
It was basically a guide that was put together each month on various products, whether it be investments or pensions, et cetera. They also had one on underwriting. With the common conditions that we used to come across and they just had the favourable treatment or favourable outcomes on there and the conditions. So it’s quite a useful guide just to sort of run through, just gave you a bit of a ballpark as to which cover would be good at looking at those conditions, whether its blood pressure or cholesterol or diabetes, for example, or the other sort of common conditions. But, I think as underwriting has progressed, I think companies are reluctant to commit themselves on a broad brush-stroke basis, I think. So that’s like going back about 15 years back.
