Consumer duty and everything else that happened last week
Undoubtedly the biggest talking point for advisers over the last week has been the publication of the FCA’s Consumer Duty policy statement.
One particular focus of Consumer Duty that stands out to us at Protection Guru are the four outcomes that the FCA are seeking:
- “fair value: consumers receive fair prices and quality
- suitability and treatment: consumers receive suitable products and services and receive good treatment
- confidence: consumers have strong confidence and levels of participation in markets
- access: diverse consumer needs are met”
It seems to me that these outcomes could have been written specifically for the protection industry. If we as the protection industry can achieve these outcomes for every customer it would go a long way correct the many stigma’s (not just from consumers) we regularly discuss.
The “Fair Value” outcome is an interesting one as many advisers’ reaction to this is “what constitutes fair value?” Within the Consumer Duty paper, the FCA state:
“We want all consumers to receive fair value. Value is about more than just price, and we want firms to assess their products and services in the round to ensure there is a reasonable relationship between the price paid for a product or service and the overall benefit a consumer receives from it.”
So how can an adviser assess this across a wide range of products when making a recommendation to their client? One way is to use ProtectionGuruPro.
ProtectionGuruPro enables the comparison of protection products (life, critical illness AND income protection) based on the quality of the plan according to your clients’ own specific needs alongside price. With a multitude of features designed to help advisers remove plans that do not meet the clients’ needs (suitability and treatment) and incorporate a budget into the analysis it is the perfect tool to help ascertain which plans offer fair value.
Thanks to HSBC Life, you can access ProtectionGuruPro at no cost until the end of August, so why not give it a try and see how it could help you meet your consumer duty requirements.
Learn more about and access ProtectionGuruPro here
Elsewhere on Protection Guru, Rob Harvey started the week by assessing how insurers calculate family income benefit non-medical underwriting limits and how different insurers’ limits compare. Unsurprisingly there are many different approaches so it is worth a read particularly if you are dealing with high sum assured FIB cases.
On Tuesday, Jessie Leworthy gave us a run down of the discussions from the second session of our July Protection Forum. This session discussed how advisers can ensure that clients keep themselves protected and not cancel their policies in the wake of the cost of living crisis. The session generated some lively debate and we had some fantastic input from a wide range of advisers.
On Wednesday Rob Harvey finished his trilogy of insights looking at indexation with an article considering the flexibility provided by insurers with regard to rejecting an increase or adding indexation to an existing plan.
Thursday saw Rob provide the detail behind British Friendly’s improved underwriting stance for Type 2 Diabetes. As always in this article Rob gives advisers the information they need to know and answers the “so what” and “what does it actually mean for my clients” questions. An insight on how insurers support advisers when giving business protection advice followed later on Thursday afternoon.
To finish the week, Rob pulled together everything you need to know about indexation which includes a fantastic claim study showing the importance of indexation in particular for income protection recommendations.
That’s it from me, I’m off to have a big coffee after celebrating the Lionesses a little too hard last night!
It’s finally come home and as a dad of an 8 year old girl I am hugely pleased that it took a team of hugely inspirational women to go get it!
Have a great week all!
