Protection News Weekly Roundup: Top Stories You Might Have Missed – 27-01-2025
Before I start this summary of everything Protection Guru shared with advisers last week I’d like to highlight that this coming Thursday 30th is AdviserSoftware.com’s annual Empowering Advice Through Technology conference in London. If you are interested in attending the event, advisers can use the code PGUSER (it needs to be in capitals) at the link above to get a £60 discount, so you only pay £125, the price normally reserved for previous delegates. I hope you will choose to join us.
Last Monday we started the week with a summary designed to improve Understanding the full impact of smoking on critical illness . This includes analysis from our independent medical panel of Doctors of the broad impact of smoking in this context, and particularly considers Heart Attack and Stroke Ischaemic Heart Disease, it also explores how we factor such considerations across our Critical Illness benchmarking for ProtectionGuruPro.
As we approach the end of the month, we looked at how Dry January is a step towards liver health with our Doctors again sharing their insights. Next up came an analysis of Waived deferred periods for linked income protection claims how insurers compare including graphics comparing different insurers policies on how many months after returning to work deferred period is waived for on linked claims and calling out the 6 insurers who stand out in this area.
While we are hearing some insurers talking loudly about claims philosophies next we looked at Why precise critical illness wordings are more important than claims philosophies . This is a crucial issue for advisers to consider with valuable views shared by our doctors using Strokes as an example of where the certainty a specific wording gives can be really important. The article also provides analysis of situations you would probably want to avoid for your clients. Click above to get into the detail.
A number of insurers choose to collaborate with us to highlight certain key details of their proposition in more detail Legal & General are one of these, so last week we highlighted where you can find this co-created content which talks about their Critical Illness wordings, overall goals and shows some great videos showing clients really benefiting from their claims service.
On Thursday Jessie Leworthy published the second part of Forum on Addressing Harm and Vulnerability options from separating life-policies in case you have not already listened to part 1 here it is This is such an important subject and the 2nd part includes content that is crucial for anyone working within an insurer to fully understand. These are points advisers may want to get a clear understanding of when talking to insurers so I would really recommend putting 90 minutes aside to listen to the two transcripts.
After listening to the meeting transcripts, advisers should be sure to look at our analysis the Current joint life insurance separation options different insurers currently offer This includes graphical analysis of the circumstances in which a policy can be separated, the age limits that apply and if the plan will be set up on the rates from the original plan (as I feel strongly it should be ) or the insurer will update the rates charged. Three companies stand out in this area, click the link above to find out who they are and understand why they are different. Key information to consider when selecting providers.
British Friendly have been doing some interesting things recently so they were the latest firm where we highlighted our joint analysis of their proposition.
Finally last week we looked at waiver of premium, how insurers compare for Life and Critical Illness waiver of premium again, a study full of essential data that really needs to be read and understood by any adviser. If I say it myself this is incredibly valuable training content.
In other news I was particular pleased to see FT Adviser write about Cirencester Friendly introducing medi2data to improve claims process Anything that improves claims processes is to be welcomed and I am a big fan of the work done by medi2Data an organisation I believe far more insurers should be supporting. Remaining on the subject of claims Money Marketing highlighted The exceptional performance of MetLife paying 27000 accident and health claims in 2024
Over on AdviserSoftware.com last week we updated our analysis of intelliflo’s Personal Finance Portal this is the most used client portal in the advice industry and as such should be a valuable benchmark to compare your own client facing service against.
The popular Voyant Go and Snapshot cashflow propositions also got an overhaul.
I hope to see you at our Empowering Advice Through technology conference on Thursday as we have some very exciting research we will be unveiling.
Have a great week!
