Saving advisers hours of research – what we looked at this week
This week on Protection Guru was very much a week for summary analysis of what insurers are delivering across the market.
We began on Monday by looking at the age limits of income protection insurance. Rob’s insight covered the maximum entry and finishing ages of every insurer’s plan, giving advisers a quick and easy resource to turn to and save the hassle of wading through lengthy policy literature.
On Thursday, Adam Higgs launched a new page on the Protection Guru website: Provider Financial Strength Ratings. We’ve worked in partnership with the independent ratings organisation AKG, to give advisers access to the full overall financial strength ratings for insurers, as well as the opportunity to download the more detailed assessment reports. We believe this will be a valuable resource, particularly as anecdotally this is something clients regularly ask about and are interested in.
Our last summary analysis of the week on Friday from Rob was a round-up of insights highlighting additional support services that insurers make available to the spouse, partner or children of the life-assured.
Returning to the theme of income protection, on Tuesday & Thursday this week we brought you the first summary transcripts from our February Protection Forum. The lively discussion focused on whether consumers fully understand what income protection actually covers and whether the language, and indeed product design, leads to confusion. Follow these links for part 1 and part 2. If you couldn’t make the session there were some very worrying messages about the extent to which organisations who are promoting financial services don’t even understand how products are properly defined.
Rob also managed this week to fit in a review of British Friendly’s changes to their Mutual Benefits. This insight not only examined what revamped support services include, but importantly how they compare with the rest of the market. This is a theme we regularly cover on Protection Guru, but as the extensive data across our benchmarking tools tells us, support services such as virtual GP benefits are something advisers find valuable.
Finally, on a personal note I am honoured and humbled to have been shortlisted for the second year in a row for the Protection Industry Leader of the Year Lifesearch Awards. Last year my colleague Adam Higgs pipped me to the post. I am really hoping to make it one stage further this year, although the rest of the short list includes some incredible leaders.
It is also great to see Protection Guru Shortlisted for the Best use of data and technology to drive exceptional customer outcomes.
The awards on 2nd March so we are all waiting with bated breath.
This week on AdviserSoftware.com, the team are featuring the latest from EVPro’s tool set. Their new planning tool, EVPro Goal, helps clients understand their progress towards their set goals and likelihood of them being reached on time.
Advisers who want to learn more can do so in our Advice Tech Hub; an online tool that analyses the solutions available to tech-savvy advice firms, entirely free to registered financial advisers. Even better, advisers can experience the full EVPro toolset first-hand at our upcoming conference, Empowering Advice Through Technology (EATT).
Keeping with the theme of Cashflow Planning, our feedback tool, the Advice Tech Ratings, has this week focused on the financial planning software our community uses. So, to all advisers out there, what’s your choice of planning software and how well does it work for you?
Finally, we’d like to send a heartfelt thanks the advisers that have rated their systems so far! It only takes 2 minutes to complete and can help other advisers learn from your experience.
Adviser Client Data: What currently Works, What doesn’t and are the important places to improve
Benefits Guru
Pension Dashboards are being created to enable savers to access all their pension information online, securely in one place.
In January, the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) established Pensions Dashboards Programme team released a timetable by which schemes will be required to provide data to the new dashboards, and the draft Pension Dashboards Regulations which will come into force from next year.
Our latest two-part insight article takes a look at the dashboards, and what their introduction will mean for providers, advisers and scheme members.
Have a great weekend everyone.
