November 2022 Roadshows – Register Now!

Hi everyone and welcome to this weeks protection update.

You’ll see that every week, I apply a title that infers what the main topic I talk about is.  This is also so that after we have published the protection update, you can easily find them via the search bar within the adviser site.

This week I want to talk about Protection Guru.

If you’ve tuned in or read some of my protection updates from earlier this year, you will remember that I have on several occasions, talked about Protection Guru.

Well, this week I want to give a generic reminder about how good this service is.

If you are a protection adviser, you should register and sign up for Protection Guru.  It’s free, and once you are in a position where you can log in; the content is amazing.

Let’s take a look at just some of the recent content.

I’ve just logged onto ProtectionGuru.co.uk and I’ll pick out a few examples…

The Exeter Showcase Page.

This week saw the launch of a ‘showcase’ page for The Exeter.  There are quite a few of these and it’s worth bookmarking them because the page shows you all the main things you need to know about that providers proposition.

In the example of The Exeter; the main contact information for underwriting and adviser support are listed at the top of the page.

You can see quick links to policy options, flexibility of cover, fixed IP benefit, their HealthWise service and other adviser resources.

Then below that, all on the same page is the detail.

It talks about their ‘Real Life’ product which is a life product for clients with multiple health disclosures.

Their main income protection product called Income First.

It then talks about some of the other opportunities such as clients with high BMI who need Income Protection as well as clients who have type 2 diabetes.

When you scroll further down the page there is even more detail where it talks about the flexibility of the cover available and the options you have to choose from including a superb option to lock in up to 75% of their monthly benefit by providing up front evidence of income.

Return to work services

Amanda Newman Smith of Protection Guru added a research piece this week called “What return to work career support services do income protection providers offer”?

Again, this is an income protection related piece because the industry have had a big promotion of Income Protection this month.

Looking at the article, again it’s excellent.

It tells you exactly

• Which providers offer support services to help income protection clients change their career upon their return to work
• What specific support each provider is able to clients
• The ways those services are offered and when they can be accessed

The article shows easy on the eye charts any I can see the first one which looks at ‘how career support services are offered’ – whether they are face to face, by telephone, online or by email; LV= and Aviva score particularly well.

When it comes to looking at exactly what support services are offered (we’re talking CV writing, Preparation for Job Interviews and Help with researching the job market); Aegon, Aviva, Holloway Friendly, LV=, Royal London and Zurich all score really well.

How easy would it be for you to find out this type of information?

It’s really good content and what I’ve mentioned so far is just this week.

Let’s look at one more…

Again, it’s income protection related (because virtually all of the latest content is), but Rob Harvey pulled another great research piece together entitled “How can clients with unstable earnings obtain income protection cover”?

Unstable earnings for IP?

When I open the article, it tells me the key learning objectives right at the top which are:

• What non-financially underwritten income protection is and why this may be more suitable for some clients
• Which insurers offer non-financially underwritten income protection
• How those insurers differ and what the limitations are of their policies

Looking at the providers who offer non financially underwritten IP; it’s Aviva with their ‘living costs’ product, British Friendly ‘Breathing Space’ and LV= have a product called “Mortgage and Rent Cover” (I did a podcast a few months ago with Carl Heard to talk about this one).

The LV= Mortgage and Rent Cover allows for the highest amount of Monthly Benefit at £2000 per month.

There is then a table which breaks down all the detail of these 3 products within the article which talks about minimum/maximum ages, maximum claim duration, deferred periods, indexation options, and lots more…

The article goes on to talk about extra benefits available on each of these products and there are links to further pages which provide all of that detail.

I wanted to just make a point of this wonderful service which is Protection Guru.

Amanda Wilson and myself here at the network are big fans of Protection Guru.  It’s worth paying for because of all the hard work that goes into providing the research and information you need as a professional adviser.

But there isn’t any cost… so sign up for it today!

I’ve added a link in this week’s protection update.

And of course; if there is something you would like them to research; let me know as we’ve asked them to research a few topics over the last year or so and they have been kind enough to do so.

One more thing… Protection Guru is free, but Protection Guru Pro is a service that launched a couple of months ago and is a paid for service.

It has quite a few angles to it which you might have heard me talk about before.

For example if you look at the output from Solution Builder where you compare the quality of different protection products; protection guru pro will give you that extra detail to produce a detailed comparison report and show you exactly why some products score higher than others.

But Protection Guru Pro includes a new service I would like to trial with advisers from within the network.

Let me explain…

Every quote portal has one thing in common…  when it returns the quotes from the providers, it displays them in the order of price.

But we all know that you get what you pay for.  Some products are better than others.  You would expect to pay more when more is included.

Protection Guru Pro have come up with a fresh idea which is to balance quality of the product against the price of the product.

From what I’ve seen, this is a real step in the right direction.

What I’m looking for is around 15 advisers from the network who would be happy to trial the software for a 3 month period and then give your honest opinion about how it worked for you.

We will be setting up some training to get you up and running and there will be ongoing support during the trial.

And, there will not be any cost to you.

If you are intrigued and interested; drop me a line and just let me know you would like to take a look at it.

I will be looking at starting the trial later into November so this will take us through to the new year.

Ok, finally, I just wanted to mention our regional roadshows that start in Cwmbran next Tuesday.  We have London on Wednesday and then the following week, Manchester and Birmingham.

I’ve added registration links to each of these within this weeks protection update.  We’ve got a new format so please register and I’ll see you there.

And finally, we’ve got our final webinar series in November which is on the subject of… wait for it… Income Protection.

The first 2 webinars are entitled “Protecting Incomes” and we have a completely different set of providers on each session.

The 3^rd and final session of this series and of 2022 is called “A smarter way to underwrite IP” and this is a collaboration between The Exeter and UnderwriteMe.  This should be a really good session.

All the registration links can be found within this protection update.

So that’s it from me once again.

Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll see you on the roadshows starting next week!