This session brought together a wide range of voices from across the advice and insurance landscape to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the business protection market. Key themes included the lack of technical training and support available to advisers, the mismatch between product design and real-world client needs, and the importance of moving beyond tax-efficiency as a starting point in client conversations.
Speakers highlighted the need for improved skills-based training, better product development (especially around shareholder protection and TPD), and stronger collaboration between wealth and protection advisers. There was a shared recognition that while business protection can seem complex, it presents a significant growth opportunity for advisers willing to invest the time to learn and build confidence.
Throughout the session, contributors offered practical insights, voiced frustrations, and shared real-world success stories—underlining the huge potential in this market when it’s approached with the right mindset and support.
“Some of the materials are good… but sometimes the frustrations I have with insurers is the policies aren’t even fit… Often they’ve not come at it from the risk.”
“You don’t want a life and critical illness policy that pays out for 50-odd conditions… You want a product that’s fit for the risk.”
“The training is minimal… and the simple stuff you really need is maybe more skills-based training. There’s none of that.”
“Something being tax efficient is the wrong place to start… You’re shortcutting a whole conversation.”
“Exec IP — you’ve increased the risk by 15% for employee’s national insurance. There are so many variables. You’ve got to think this through.”
“However difficult or scary it might seem… it is a great bit of industry and business to get into… I love my job.”
Click the audio playback below to listen to the full session.
Full session audio
Part 2:
“Critical illness doesn’t quite fit as a solution… It shouldn’t really be that hard for a provider to come up with some kind of ill health retirement type benefit.”
“There is still quite a bit of silo going on and we do need to break that down… If you’re not going to do it as a wealth adviser, refer it on.”
“I’ve got one adviser… he’s having so many conversations, he’s had to hire another advisor just to process applications — and he’s done that in under a year.”
“There wasn’t the support infrastructure behind it… Relevant life and Exec IP were touted as gateways, but they’re just employee benefits.”
“It’s about goal analysis. What’s the goal, what’s the risk, and how do we stop it from materialising?”
“Exec IP is often no better than a personal policy… If you’re not going into technical detail, you might be producing a bad outcome thinking you’re doing something positive.”
“Every day is a school day when it comes to business protection.”
“There’s potentially every single business that could have a need for what we do… It’s very rare you come out of a client meeting where there isn’t something.”
“The proposed changes to business property relief — the growth in that area is going to be absolutely huge.”
“You literally do learn something new every single time… different scenarios every time.”
“We need something more like a TPD, a career-ending illness type scenario… not critical illness… It’s cost-prohibitive.”
“TPD gets mental health exclusions even when someone’s stable — should we be rating instead of excluding?”
“Advisers sometimes tend to lead with the tax treatment on premiums… rather than looking at the overall need holistically.”
“You find yourself trying to shoehorn in the tax-efficient solution, when it might not actually meet the immediate need.”
“There are a lot of advisers looking into this for all the wrong reasons… They’re telling clients what to do, but not necessarily for the right reasons.”
“Knowledge is key, but listening to your client is the priority.”
