Every piece of product research is wasted if your client walks away without cover. That is the challenge at the heart of last week’s content on Protection Guru. Our March Forum brought together two experienced voices to examine why affordability remains the default objection, and the answer has less to do with price than most advisers expect. Alongside that, our quarterly Awareness Days roundup draws together the clinical insights published since January, and a detailed article on pituitary tumours shows just how far medical reclassification can run ahead of policy language.
Is affordability the scapegoat for no cover? – March Forum Recap – Part One featured Matthew Chapman of The Protection Coach and Terry Blackburn of The Wealthy Advisers Club. Both arrived at the same diagnosis. When a client raises price as a concern, the problem almost always sits earlier in the advice process, not at the point of recommendation.
Chapman’s argument is direct. A price objection tells you the advice process has not established value. If the client sees protection as an expense rather than an investment, the framing has already failed. Blackburn approaches it from accountability. The questions asked in the fact find determine whether price becomes the focus. If you lead with cost, the client will meet you there.
Both were clear on one point that deserves attention. Protection should never be presented as a bolt-on to mortgage advice. When it is treated as an integrated part of the discussion from the outset, the dynamic changes. The client is choosing which plan to take, not whether to take one at all. That shift in framing is where the commercial difference sits for advisers, and where the consumer outcome improves. I would urge you to listen to the full session recording, which is available from the article linked above.
A far better result can be achieved if you give the client a range of choices based on quality and value, this again moves the conversation on from do you want to buy, which is the inevitable question when a price comparison is presented, one product will usually be cheapest to, which do you want to buy. The links at the end of this piece will help identify the best way to provide detailed value for money comparisons in under two minutes as part of any protection discussion.
Establishing that value depends on having the knowledge to back it up. Over the first quarter of this year, we have published detailed insights tied to health awareness campaigns, and Awareness Days January to March – Everything you need to know brings these together in one place. From Dry January and liver health, through to National Heart Month with our analysis of coronary artery bypass grafts, angioplasty and the evolving definition of heart attack, to Endometriosis Action Month, Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and Brain Tumour Awareness Month, each article was developed with our independent panel of doctors to explain how conditions present in practice and how they are defined within protection products.
The roundup is a practical resource. If you are advising on Critical Illness (CI), Income Protection, or both, this is a single reference point for the clinical context behind conditions your clients may face. The value is in having these insights ready before the client conversation, not scrambling for them during it.
One example from the quarter shows just how quickly the ground can shift beneath a policy’s wording. Pituitary Tumours: Could Your Client Claim Full Cancer Cover for a Benign Tumour? The PitNET Answer May Surprise You explains what happened when the World Health Organisation reclassified pituitary adenomas as Pituitary Neuroendocrine Tumours, or PitNETs. The tumours have not changed. They remain clinically benign in the vast majority of cases. But the new WHO classification code is one typically reserved for malignant tumours.
The insurance consequence is significant. A CI policy that promises a full payout for malignant cancer with histological confirmation could, in theory, be triggered by a pathology report labelling a PitNET as malignant, even though the condition is benign. Insurers are updating their wordings to close this gap, and advisers placing new CI business should check whether the insurer’s current definitions address PitNETs specifically. For clients with existing cover on older wordings, the reclassification may work in their favour. For those taking out new policies, the picture is different. The article covers the full underwriting position and is worth reading before this comes up in practice.
The connection between last week’s articles is worth sitting with. The Forum makes the case that the advice conversation is where cover either happens or doesn’t. The quarterly roundup provides the clinical knowledge that makes those conversations credible. And the pituitary article is a sharp reminder that the technical detail is always moving. Advisers who invest in both sides of that equation, the conversation and the content, are the ones whose clients end up properly protected. The ones who rely on price alone are the ones whose clients end up with no cover at all.
We produce our Protection Guru Digital Directory as a comprehensive technical reference for advisers across all areas of protection. The conditions and themes covered across this quarter’s awareness articles are all included, giving advisers a structured resource to draw on in client conversations and for continuing professional development.
Another new publication from the team behind Protection Guru was launched last week. Our Adviser AI & Tech – Everyone You Need to Know Magazine has been relaunched. The first edition for 2026 includes 14 detailed articles on new adviser technology plus an index of 338 reviews of adviser technology produced by our team all of whom have extensive experience working in advice firms. If you did not get a personal copy, you can download it from the link above.
Last week many of us will have had time to spend with our families and the other people we care about the most. That can be a great trigger to think about Family Income Benefit cover for clients. It is a tremendous contract providing a regular tax-free monthly income, paid to a family if the worst happens is something every client can picture. If you have not yet seen how Protection Guru Pro handles Family Income Benefit cases in practice, the Watch our video in How to give “value for money” driven advice on Family Income Benefits plans in just a few minutes will show you how really easy this can be. Many advisers will have spent Easter with their own families. That is exactly the conversation your clients need to be having too.
Do you want to present your clients with a thorough analysis that shows them the cheapest plan, the most comprehensive cover and something in the middle that may offer the best value, with a condition-by-condition breakdown? If so, you may want to upgrade your protection proposition to Protection Guru Pro. Typically, 85% of clients, given the choice between the cheapest plan and a better one, go for something better. After all, they are buying cover to protect the people they care about the most.
Advisers using our system regularly find they increase their written premiums, and therefore their commission, by 20% per month. If that sounds worthwhile, next time you need to give protection advice please click the button below to get a 7-day free trial of Protection Guru Pro. Please wait until you have a case you want to test our system with.
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