Although it’s been a slightly shorter week this week, we’ve still crammed in some broad and extensive product feature analysis on Protection Guru. As ever, our content is about supporting advisers with detailed insights, that are quick and easy to digest and cover the important topics that matter to them and their clients.

We book-ended the week with insights examining the guaranteed insurability options offered by insurers. Tuesday’s insight focused on the guaranteed insurability options offered on life and critical illness cover, whilst Friday’s regular ‘everything you need to know’ round-up brought together all of our past insights on GIOs. Whilst we believe there is scope for insurers to improve the flexibility around GIOs, these are useful insights to help advisers understand when GIOs are available and any limitations if applicable.

On Wednesday we turned out our attention to income protection insurance and an insight looking at which insurers offer special defer periods for NHS medics, teachers and public sector workers. Like the GIO content we’ve mentioned previously, this is again ultimately an examination into the flexibility of products to cater and adapt to different client needs. Whilst income protection plans still offer fairly fixed defer periods that have barely changed in years, many workers sick pay structure does not fit neatly into those options. Rob’s insight highlights some of the specialist options available.

For Thursday’s insight Rob turned his attention to life insurance and specifically the free cover offered by insurers during application underwriting or mortgage completion. We’ve spoken and written extensively on Protection Guru about the challenges of medical underwriting and the potential for client harm when an application is delayed. Whilst free cover is far from the solution to this problem, it does at least provide a degree of protection to those clients whose application does take longer to process.

A reminder for those who may have missed the announcement last week, our next Protection Forum will take place on Tuesday 10^th May. Advisers wishing to register for their free ticket can do so here.

This promises to be another interesting and thought provoking session, where our discussion topic will focus on:

‘How can the industry better promote protection insurance?’

We also now have a dedicated Protection Forum homepage, where you can find past content and also submit your ideas and suggestions for future discussion topics.