Weekly Roundup – Review of what was a very busy week!
Despite this being a shorter week following the bank holiday on Monday, it’s been a HUGE week in the protection insurance industry, with the FCA making an announcement about launching an investigation into the protection market. This has been called the biggest in-depth examination of the industry since the introduction of the 1986 Financial Services Act.
Protection Guru’s founder, Ian McKenna will share his own detailed thoughts on the review in the coming weeks and aim to highlight key points for advisers to consider in the context of the new investigation and the Thematic Review announced the week before. This will certainly be one not to miss. Many of Ian’s views have been widely publicised in the media already, so follow these links to get a taste of what’s to come:
- FCA concerned over broker protection commissions – Mortgage Strategy
- FCA launches market study into pure protection market – The Intermediary – Latest UK mortgage news
- FCA to look into broker protection commissions – Mortgage Finance Gazette
- FCA launches investigation into protection sales | Financial Reporter
- FCA announces work into pure protection market – and reaction – IFA Magazine
- The right thing to do’ – Advisers applaud FCA protection market investigation – Health & Protection (healthcareandprotection.com)
- FCA pure protection review welcomed – Professional Paraplanner
- Behind the headlines: Is the protection market competitive enough? We’re about to find out – Money Marketing
So, let’s take a look back some other areas covered last week, on Protection Guru…
How can we help more advisers succeed in Protection?
Matthew Chapman, a regular and key contributor to the Protection Guru insights, wrote an article on what more can be done to set advisers up for success:
“When I first started working in this industry, I was shocked at the lack of meaningful independent protection training available to firms and their advisers. Specifically in key areas such as soft skills, objection handling and the conversational side of protection advising.
If you operate within a network, you are typically required to undertake protection induction training but, even then, the content is often created through a compliance lens and with a greater focus on process and product than customer outcomes, solutions or sales skills.
If you run a directly authorised practice, I dread to think what basic resources – if any – were available when you first set up.
Couple that with the fact most do not need any formal qualifications to begin advising on protection and it begs the question: are we setting advisers up to fail?”
Click here to read the full article
The stories behind Income Protection Claims – Harvey’s Story
One of the most positive stories during 2024 has been the increased sales of income protection. While this is welcome, we need to see more, protecting the client’s income should be the first need for a financial product for most consumers, remembering the following key reasons people need income protection:
- Every financial plan fails without an income
- You cannot pay or get a mortgage without an income
- Income protection plans should ideally go in-force as soon as the need is identified, rather than waiting until the mortgage actually starts. If the client loses their income they will not be able to afford the loan, so that is a poor consumer outcome we need to protect against
The Exeter shared their most recent claims stories, about one of their valued members, Harvey:
Harvey, an Events Company Owner with a huge passion for music, spent his days rushing around, jumping on stages and spending long hours producing events. He was one of the rare few who was actually living their dream.
Harvey started getting itchy eyes and experiencing numb feet in his 30’s. Doctors recommended Harvey visited a Neurologist and after an MRI scan, he received a diagnosis that would change his life forever.
Find out how an Income Protection plan with The Exeter supported Harvey in continuing to live his dream, by clicking here…
How to help make clients’ critical illness claims painless
Next, we published a wonderfully written article from another key contributor to our insights Amanda Newman Smith, on how to make clients’ critical illness claims as painless as possible:
“When protection advisers recommend critical illness (CI) cover, they hope their clients will never need to make a claim. But in an ageing population, it is inevitable some will be diagnosed with a serious illness.
To give advisers an idea of the extent of serious illness in the UK, Macmillan Cancer Support says around 393,000 people a year are diagnosed with cancer. The British Heart Foundation estimates around 100,000 people a year are admitted to hospital due to heart attacks and statistics from the Stroke Association are similar.
If a client needs to make a claim on their CI policy, they might look to their adviser to support them through the process. Advice firms vary as to the extent they will get involved but what can they do if they want to help clients here?”
