Improving engagement with Tech – What advisers want

“I was going to look at the whole application journey when it comes to how technology can help and ultimately what advisors are trying to deliver, which is the best outcomes for the clients on the price, the suitability and the quality of the product being recommended. Now the traditional process isn’t overly transparent, it can take a long time, it can be quite fragmented. Having to use multiple systems to quote, to underwrite and compare the quality of the products, it can be quite difficult.” 

“Another challenge that we see being faced is that starting price and quite often not being the price that the client ends up paying, which can be quite a difficult conversation for advisors to have when it comes to managing clients expectations, but also getting across the real value of protection because they’re seeing that initial price they think they’re going to be paying increasing to what they end up paying.”

“In terms of post underwriting, you know, that can be quite a time-consuming headache for advisors to go through as well when additional information is needed, whether it’s GP reports or whether it’s medicals and blood tests that are needed. I think technology on all those things is helping advisors at the moment.”

“Hopefully what I’ve gone through shows you how technology can help advisors simplify the process and help reduce the amount of time taken on all the elements and cover off, more questions that need to be answered in the pre-sales journey. I think the collaboration with HSBC and Square Health on the automated medical assessments takes the technology to a new level. And I’m sure in the marketplace there’ll be other businesses and other firms looking to improve that whole post application underwriting side of things. And then finally, with the integration with PG Pro, advisors will be able to get access to the quality analysis combined with the underwriting decisions. “

“In this day and age in the world of AI, we’re having to do these things manually, how can you scale a business if you’re having to do your annual statements manually?”

“Post RDR we are clearly obliged to do annual reviews and we are checked up on by the regulator. They are sending information to their pension and ISA customers, not their protection customers, and is that simply because the FCA makes you do it… And I have to say, I think clients would find it very, very strange if you gave them a list of their pensions and their ISAs and not the protection. So the review for us is a review across everything. I think it’s integrated into our philosophy that we keep in touch with people, not because the FCA makes us do it but because it’s the right thing to do. And I think as Emma quite rightly said, that’s the easiest way you’ll ever get referrals. Because if your client can’t remember what your name is and what you look like, they’re certainly not going to go around and tell their friends and family about you. So, you know, there’s a hugely positive side to it as well.”

“The final thing is undoubtedly consumer duty. And I know lots of wealth advisers have changed the outlook of many. I think consumer duty will lead to more. And it’s important that the protection community go back to that other word of signposting and form strategic relationships… So for me, consumer duty is a massive opportunity for the wealth and protection communities to join forces.”

“I terms of annual statements, we do it a couple of ways. Different advisors operate in different ways and they have different sizes and scales across the network… So if somebody is linked to BMI or somebody linked to smoking and they are given an indication that they are looking to change their height-weight ratio or they’re looking to stop smoking, then it’s really a simple just reminder task management give the client a call in the year’s time check-in. Believe it or not, that makes the client feel more engaged. It makes the client feel like you’ve remembered them, and it starts to build in more referrals… It’s about picking up the phone to those individuals and saying, ‘Right, we’ve still got this. This is what your policy has, Any questions, any queries?’ so the client can choose to engage and have a conversation.”

“Something that we’ve always done over the last five years of starting this business, but it’s staying in contact is key. We are paid for this by the insurer to actually arrange a client’s insurance. So why are we not there for the journey? I’m a big believer of being there when they need us the most, and that’s a claim stage. It’s important if a client knows that you’re there to help them get a cheaper premium if the BMI is reduced or they’ve had an exclusion on that, we can look to get removed in the future.. It’s a manual process and it can be a big pain in the bum. Aviva and Exeter are great. They’ll send us this information and then we just manually put it onto our bubble statements. But it’s a really good way of referrals. Keeping your client’s policy up to date, but also just helping with your retention of the business as well, which is really important.“

“It’s interesting that over the last 20 years has there been that much change in the technology… Because 20 years ago I was sitting in an estate agents using a straight-through process… It was almost slicker then than it is now. But as advisors, I rely very much on my network and for having processes in place. And using providers that are giving me certain things. So if a provider doesn’t give me certain things as a professional advisor, I won’t use that provider anymore. I think we’ve all got those choices that we can make as well.”

“I’ve started trialling Protection Guru Pro for comparing insurance policies, historical and current. And I’ve got to say that it really helps me to be able to quote a client on the quality of the product rather than on the price. To have a piece of software there that points it out in black and white, it’s really useful. And I share this with my clients and quite often the client can see the overall benefit of going with a more quality product.”

“Annual reviews are the only way forward. We have to get over the fact that people just see us as somebody out there just looking to make commission. I see consumer duty as very much an opportunity. I had a circumstance a few months ago where a provider contacted me to say they hadn’t received the hard copy of the trust form and I didn’t know they wanted the hard copy. I thought it was electronic, but it turned out they wanted a wet signature on the document and they were going to cancel the client’s plan after all that work. So I agree 100%, why are we not just digital in that?”

“So annual statements is one thing, but the other thing that I think I will start saying once annual statements are resolved is probably, and especially from a provider perspective, how often clients are using some of the value-added benefits? So which ones are they using that they have access to and which ones they aren’t using? Now I know for some of it it will be confidentiality and so on and so forth, but it would be quite good to know because again, with the conversation between advisor and client, it’s not just about what’s on the annual statement and things increasing, what you have access to, you can really turn the conversation differently.”

“I work for a fintech company. We don’t do stuff for free. Advisors have to be willing to either pay more to their networks or pay for these tools. And that’s one thing I’m going to say. There’s a lot of expectation on tech companies, on providers to deliver a lot of things for free, and it’s just more of a food for thought question, actually. We want all these tools, we want all these process improvements. They’re not cheap. They’re not free. If someone gave you that process improvement, what is that to you cost-wise? Is that something you would pay for? It’s just more of a kind of statement question, something for people to think about. I’d love it if all the tech we did was free, but I probably wouldn’t have a job here if it was.“

“We’re forever ringing up the underwriters, sending on further information, sending on consultant letters. What we’ve found through that is we’re getting stuff through underwriting far quicker. So I’ve had a case this morning with AIG where the system wanted a medical report for migraines. I’ve got the consultant letter and they’ve literally offered terms, which is brilliant because why are we going to wait three months for a medical report when I’ve already got that information from the client? Having a free text box is brilliant because yes, it will get referred, but that’s actually better in my opinion because you can give far more detailed information than the application is going to give you. There should also be an option to upload documents. I just think that would be a great feature to have to be able to upload documents and have just a free text box to provide further information that doesn’t fit on the application.”