If you’re looking for technical insight and practical guidance to support better protection outcomes, this week’s content on Protection Guru delivered exactly that.

Across just five days, we tackled everything from mental health underwriting failures and fracture cover comparisons to product governance under Consumer Duty and lifestyle medicine for brain health.

Here’s your full recap.

Tuesday began with a powerful follow-up to one of our most honest Protection Forums yet. In Mental Health Disclosures – July Forum Recap – Part Two, advisers continued their frank discussion on the real-world consequences of outdated insurer practices. Topics included unfair exclusions, menopause misclassification, and the absence of reviewable terms. The panellists also proposed practical improvements, from requiring insurers to contact clients when exclusions lapse, to better equipping underwriters to make contextual assessments. If you missed it, you can also catch up on Part One here.

We followed this with an important reminder that many CI benchmarking models are no longer enough on their own. In Why only assessing Critical Illness plans for quality & value fails FCA Consumer Duty requirements – and how to fix it, Jason Coleman explains why advisers need to move beyond simple rankings and price comparisons. He outlines how Protection Guru Pro enables advisers to assess not just CI, but also Life and Income Protection cover based on feature quality and cost, helping meet cross-cutting rules and evidencing Consumer Understanding.

Wednesday’s article marked World Brain Day with a valuable client-facing read. In World Brain Day: Unlocking Brain Health Through Lifestyle, Jason breaks down the science linking cardiovascular and cognitive health, and shows how lifestyle medicine principles can support long-term brain resilience. Advisers can use this to reinforce conversations around value-added services or simply to bring meaningful health insight into client reviews.

On Thursday, Amanda Newman Smith tackled a topic that often gets over-simplified. Her article, Pointers for putting life cover in trust, moves beyond inheritance tax and explains how trusts can address probate delays, intestacy risks, and more. It also includes a balanced view on when beneficiary nomination may be a more appropriate or simpler solution. This is a key read for anyone advising single life cases, especially for unmarried clients.

Friday closed out the week with two technical articles that advisers shouldn’t miss. First, Which insurers offer fracture cover and how do they compare? offers a side-by-side comparison of current market offerings, covering who includes fracture cover, how much they pay, what’s excluded, and how many claims are allowed. There’s also a new breakdown of Vitality’s revised approach and an update on MetLife’s ChildShield.

We also published a practical webinar announcement and resource guide for iPipeline Solution Builder users. In Are you missing out on one of the industry’s best free resources?, Jason introduces iPipeline’s Product Features Report, a tool that allows advisers to compare product quality across 10 selected features, backed by Protection Guru analysis. It’s fast, free, CPD-accredited and ideal for evidencing suitability and value. This is actually free for any firms who are already Solution Builder users.  This article includes registration links for upcoming webinars, including sessions on CI benchmarking, legacy product reviews and FIB.

Final thoughts

The Consumer Duty lens is now being applied across every part of the advice journey, and this week’s articles reflect that. Whether you’re reviewing old policies, evidencing recommendations, or helping clients understand added-value features, the tools and insights are there.

Scroll back up and make sure you’ve read what’s relevant or save this page for later. It’s a week worth catching up on.