Some light weekend reading on Protection, Industry Technology and Workplace Benefits
Can I begin my end of week summary by calling out that the extended submission date for our inaugural Protection Guru Awards is fast approaching – you have until 23:59 on Sunday 19th September to send in your entries. We already have many outstanding entries but there are some great protection firms out there and emerging talent that have yet to put themselves forward. If you haven’t entered already, please consider doing so. In addition, I would stress that our insurer awards are only voted for by advisers and people working in advice firms, so for any advisers or support staff who have not already voted please do so, it’s a great opportunity to send positive messages to those insurers that you think are doing the right thing.
Tuesday saw Legal & General’s new key person income protection proposition. You can read Rob Harvey’s views on this here
Turning to our normal Protection Guru content on Monday Rob got the week underway with a look at Which insurers offer free or immediate cover for business protection. I have covered Tuesday’s announcements above. Wednesday saw Amanda Newman Smith examine how insurers compare when helping clients recover after a critical illness. followed on Thursday with another insight from Amanda, this time looking at who offers what to support advisers selling business protection. We finished the week with a summary insight highlighting four things you should read about free cover during underwriting.
Finally, our next online Protection Forum meeting will be held on Tuesday 5 October at 11am. We’ll announce the agenda next week, but any advisers who would like to register for a free ticket to join the session can do so via this link.
Over on our Benefits Guru site on Tuesday Jason Green asked whether video pension statements are growing in popularity? On Thursday, Kat Mitchell published the first part of her analysis of workplace Member portals – a deep dive of the services and the functionality included .
It was a busy week over on our AdviserSoftware.com with some very big names under the spotlight. Adam Flowers produced all the weeks content beginning wIth a look at Third Financial Software’s Tercero wealth management proposition. I keep seeing Tercero winning lots of contracts in the banking end of the wealth sector, so it may be worth those at the top end of the market understanding what it has to offer. True Potential were in the news last week for agreeing a huge investment from Cinven to buy most of the business. This makes it a good time to look at their technology. This is exactly what we did on Tuesday turning the spotlight on their vNext wealth practice management system and client portal. True Potential say that one way and the other they support 20% of the adviser community with various technology and or services so insurers and platforms really need to understand their technology and why it has played such a big role in their spectacular growth over recent years.
It was the turn of Visyond on Wednesday, where we examined their smart system, a cloud-based proposition which incorporates Excel-compatible spreadsheet modelling, analysis automation and an interactive reporting platform. Thursday focused on the Iress Xplan wealth practice management system that underpins the operations of a large number of advice firms. We ended the week looking at FE fundinfo’s portfolio analysis tool FE Analytics a very popular solution in the market place.
Last, a reminder that our Investment Forum takes place on Tuesday 21 September at 2pm where the discussion will focus on Cyber Security & Secure Communications and whether firms have changed their methods of data security since the start of the pandemic. We plan to discuss:
- What is “Good Practice” for cyber security/secure communications?
- What should firms be doing as an absolute minimum?
- What can the insurers/platform community do to make advisers lives easier?
- Outsourced cyber security/secure communication resources
Tony Challands, Group Head of IT at Benchmark Capital and SJP’s Group Head of Cyber Security, Matt Smith will be our panellists for this session. This is such an important session I would encourage people from all areas of the industry to join us, you can never know too much about cyber security and how to manage the ever-changing risks from hackers, malware and ransomware. Advisers can register for a free ticket to attend the online meeting by visiting this link.
Have a great weekend and I hope the various articles above are worth reading, perhaps with a glass or tow of your favourite libation.
