Hi everyone and welcome to this week’s protection update.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a week where we say “not much happened this week…”
I hope you’re all keeping well and it’s going to be great to see you all next week at our NTE where the theme is ‘limitless’ and you can interpret that title in various different ways.
I think what this week has shown is that your clients need you to give them advice. Reassurance and a way forward when unexpected things happen.
If you’ve not booked your ticket yet, you really need to do it now as we are almost at capacity.
I’ve added a link to this week’s protection update.
Now on Wednesday this week, I attended the Cover Claims and Underwriting Innovation conference down in London. It was good to see you down there, Nick Meek from Vida!
I’ve spoken recently about our membership of the PDG group in a recent protection update which you will be able to find on our adviser site.
Tom Baigrie who is the chair of LifeSearch and one of the founder members of the protection distributors group gave the final address of the day and he described the function of the Protection Distributors Group (the PDG) as a group of like-minded ‘do gooders’ from across the distribution space who have the sole focus of lobbying for better consumer outcomes.
It’s a group made up of distributors. Not life companies.
The work the PDG have done so far is to improve the claims experience for customers because if you’ve been involved in one recently; some life offices could do a lot better.
There were some quite negative stories about claims.
One example explained that claimants are sometimes having to wait 30 minutes, just to get through to the life office to try and lodge a claim. That’s not good enough.
Like anything in life, before you can fix a problem, you have to recognize and identify that there is one and there was a rallying call to challenge the providers that they need to do better. Get more resource.
Other stories illustrated how some providers are failing to meet the pledges they signed up for (we have fed some examples into the PDG from our network) and in the conference; no punches were pulled and it was another rallying call to action for the providers to do better, or risk losing their status as upholding the pledge they signed up to.
One adviser said they need to raise standards and treat the payment of claims with the same priority as they have for getting new business on the books.
And this is because its only at the point you need to actually claim on your life policy that you realize the value of it.
We heard from advisers who have helped clients navigate through the claim process.
There was one story about a lady who woke up one morning and as she started to come around and gave her husband a nudge; he didn’t move. He’d died in the night.
This is real. It happens. Can you imagine that?
She went into a form of autopilot shock by the sounds of it because she needed to occupy herself with things that gave her a focus and that same day. She contacted her adviser about the life assurance policy they had – her husband was still in the bed!
I think unless you’ve had a trauma like that, it’s difficult to imagine quite how this might affect you mentally, and probably; you might not find the process for completing a life assurance claim easy and straightforward?
There was another story from an adviser who said that he’s dealt with several claims (in fact this adviser is on the PDG group) and he said that when he’s in this type of situation, he feels quite at a loss to know exactly what to say.
What you say and how you say it with tact, understanding, empathy, compassion – all critically important.
He said that listening to the customer and allowing them to talk is one of the most important things he’s learned over the past 10 years when dealing with a customer who needs to make a claim.
And that probably goes against the instincts of most advisers because we like to do the talking.
He said with regards to one recent client and the claim they were making; he explained the claim process and he explained he’s going to be there to help sort this out. But then, he said… right, let’s put that to one side for a minute. How are you?
With that the client immediately burst into tears. It’s heartbreaking stuff, but protection is money on the table, when you need it the most.
That’s it.
You can’t stop bad things from happening, but you can fix the finances. And that’s quite a powerful thing that does make you feel proud in this profession.
And I think for the many insurers, underwriters and claims handlers who were at this conference; it was quite important to hear those sorts of stories.
What happened on the mortgage market was unexpected this week and I was in two minds whether to go, but I was glad to be there because we (the right mortgage) do have a seat at the PDG table and it is a genuine force for good.
There are only 3 networks who are members of the PDG. The Right Mortgage & Protection Network is one of them and we had our membership approved earlier this year.
If you’ve got any feedback about claims experiences that you have had, good or bad, please let me know.
Group Protection / Group Risk – Unum
Now at the NTE next week, we will be joined by Unum who are one of our Group Risk specialist providers. I know not many advisers are active in the group risk space.
I’ve been doing a bit of work recently to really look at our processes with a view to making them a lot more clear and easier to follow and Unum have been helping us.
We’ve still got work still to do on that, but when you go into the exhibition hall next week at the NTE, the Protection Zone will be the first thing you will see and you’ll be able to visit a wide range of our protection providers all in one place – including Unum.
If this is an area you are interested in exploring, go and have a chat with Paul who will be on the Unum stand. He knows this market and he’s been excellent at helping some of our advisers get cases across the line if you’re new to this market.
Conveyancing providers at the NTE
And I just wanted to mention something else which isn’t actually protection.
You should have received a communication from me if you are authorized to advise on mortgages?
We’ve refreshed the Conveyancing panel and from this point; we’re going to do more activity with our conveyancing providers starting with masterclasses towards the end of October.
Goto Group and Movin’ Legal (2x of our conveyancers) will be there next to the virtual reality charity game next week so again, pop over and have a chat with them. We’ve got some great incentives and bonuses agreed if you’ve not used these conveyancers before which they will be happy to tell you all about.
Protection Webinars October
So, I’m going to keep it relatively short this week. Just a few final bits to cover…
I will inevitably be running around next Thursday at the NTE as I always do, but grab me and say hi.
I use this protection update platform each week just to keep in touch with you but next week is an opportunity for you to engage with me and the rest of the team in person.
We’ve been running our Income Protection Champion competition over the past 3 months (wow that time has flown!)
This competition was just to try and give some balance to the portfolio of recommendations we make What I can tell you is that we, as a collective within this network, are recommending more Income Protection to our customers now than we did before we started this competition/project has been a success. Realistically, there is still lots of room for improvement, but there always is.
The Income Protection champion competition closes today (30th September) at 5pm so we’re going to work out who is the winner in both Income Protection and ASU categories and we will award these winners next week.
By the way… we’ve got a couple of webinars happening later in October called “Protection Portfolios” and I’ve added links for you to register in this week’s protection update.
And I’ve got a great protection panel next week and as is customary; we will have a bit of balance by including an adviser who is a principal of one of our most successful mortgage and protection businesses within our network.
That panel discussion is called “It’s your duty – do the right thing!”
So, that’s it from me for another week and I look forward to seeing you all in Birmingham next Thursday!
So, these webinars take place on the 18th and the 20th October.
I’ve added the registration links to this weeks protection update, so book your place now!
Just before I wrap up, you’ve still got next week to write more income protection and be in with a chance of winning our income protection champion trophy.
The following week is the NTE and we will present the award there.
Have a great weekend everyone and I’ll see you soon
