Why we should all be proud of advisers

Hello Everyone,

Another seven days when the Protection industry has gone from strength to strength. My highlight was the discussion at our Protection Guru Forum on Wednesday about how to improve claims processes. In this session we had multiple adviser firms explaining how they go the extra mile to help clients at the worst times. Everyone in the industry should read this summary which we will be posting online in the near future. It should make you proud of our industry and for those who are not acting in this way, it identifies many ways you can improve your firms.

Turning to content we created this week we began with a summary to support World Mental Health day looking at how insurers support clients. As can be seen from this LinkedIn post quite a few advisers and insurers have shared this content with their clients over social media. Please feel free to do the same, all we ask is that you tag us in the post, so we can track activity.

Also on Monday, Vitality went live with their simplification of their product range. To support this we worked with them to create a Vitality Showcase Page which summarises the features and benefits of the new proposition. It is well worth reading the feedback on LinkedIn to see what other advisers have said about both the proposition and the showcase page itself. Thank you to all of those who have made positive comments. 

All our showcase pages are created by working with insurers to produce an objective analysis of their overall proposition via a main showcase page or a showcase on a particular product or proposition. These are rapidly becoming some of the most popular pages on Protection Guru. 

Other showcase pages are available from LV= who have a main page, their Income Showcase and a Critical Illness Showcase. Guardian also with a main Showcase, a Critical Illness Showcase and a Life Protection Showcase . Scottish Widows have a main Showcase and a Critical Illness Showcase. Five more insurers have showcase pages in the works so look out for these in the next few weeks.

We will have several great new features coming to Protection Guru over the next month or so. These will bring even more detailed tools and analysis to help advisers compare protection products and support their advice processes. These extra services will be please register here so that you will be able to access these features as soon as they become available.

Tuesday saw the publication of another post that has proved very popular with advisers exploring Waiver of Premium – Who Does What? Aviva, Legal & General, LV=, Royal London and Vitality were all called out for special credit in the piece, it’s really worth reading the detail to understand how the different companies go the extra mile.

Dealing with the longer-term consequences of ill-health is a really topical issue currently so Wednesday’s analysis on Protecting clients from the consequences of reduced earnings should also be a must-read. AIG, Aviva and Royal London won the plaudits. Find out why from the link above.

This naturally led on to Thursday’s Study on Career support services-Who-does-what? Reading this LV=, Royal London and Zürich particularly caught my attention. 

To end the week Steve Berry produced our latest Everything You Need to Know study this time looking at Addressing the income protection needs of different demographics

I’d like to highlight a couple of other events which you or colleagues may find interesting. Our Forum on Open Banking & Open Finance at 11AM -12:30 Wednesday 14th October will look at how the financial advice market will be transformed by these new services. This is a fascinating subject and we have a number of the key experts on the subject joining the call. Well worth attending and please feel free to pass on to anyone else who would find this useful.

If in advance of this if you would like to get an understanding for how these sessions work you can visit the transcript of Our September event explored the dramatic changes to regulations on how firms will be forced to make ESG part of their investment propositions. It is evident that many advisors were shocked by the new regulations being introduced and the dramatic impact they will have on how they give advice. Again, please feel free to share with anyone that would find this useful. 

As someone who in more normal times attends a couple of dozen conferences around the world last year’s LIMRA Life insurance conference was without doubt one of the best events I attended. For obvious reasons this year the event has moved online which actually will make it easier for people based in the UK to participate. Please have a look around this link 2020 LIMRA annual conference 

Adam Higgs and I will both be participating, and I would urge anyone with a strategy role in the life insurance industry to do the same

We will be back on Monday and all week with lots more information and analysis, it is due to be another busy week for announcements and new services so in the meantime have a great weekend and please find a few minutes to go through our registration process so that we can continue to offer you the best possible Protection Guru experience.