Protection Update 5th November 2021
Protection Update 5th November
Hi everyone,
Welcome to this Fridays protection update – bonfire night! 5th November.
I just wanted to start by mentioning something personal to me which I found out just a few days ago.
We all know time flies and sometimes things we use to do in the past can still appear really fresh in the mind and one of those things for me was when I used to play football up in Manchester.
Me and a group of friends used to take our football quite seriously and I think we got to a decent level of skill, although it was only 5 a side football. We would play typically one or two times a week.
When I reflect back, the group of friends were all from quite different backgrounds and we all had very different jobs. I think I was the only one in financial services, but the thing that we did all have in common was our love of the beautiful game. We just loved playing football whatever the weather. I remember driving back from St Albans to the Trafford Centre in Manchester just to play a game; only to have to drive all the way back to St Albans again later that evening because I was working there for a few days.
One of my friends was a guy called Steve. He was a huge Manchester United fan. He was a season ticket holder and would go to away games too. But it always made me laugh that he loved football so much, he would steward at Manchester City for years, but I think he packed it in when City started winning trophies.
As sometimes happens in life, you sometimes lose contact with people and I stopped playing football with the boys when I moved away from Manchester in 2010.
But I remember when Steve got married and then when they more recently started a family together. Steve was a couple of years younger than me but essentially, all the guys were pretty much the same age.
Steve’s profession was an architect and he did me a ‘mates rates’ deal on some plans for a big house extension project. He saved me quite a bit of money on what it would have cost.
Well, I found out that he’d suffered a stroke 2 weeks ago which resulted in a bleed on the brain. And about a week later (the weekend just gone), he sadly passed away. He was 47.
So he leaves behind his wife and children who are still at school.
That’s life I guess and this is what happens all the time.
I don’t make any apologies for sometimes sounding like a broken record because having protection front and centre of your advice process is magic.
What I’ve just explained there is a human tragedy and the harsh reality is that there isn’t anything we can do to prevent those things happening.
And I believe Steve did have cover in place which takes care of the finances. But I reckon Steve family would swap that in a heartbeat to have him back.
Our job is a professional one and there is a duty of care.
Give every single one of your clients the opportunity to tell you they don’t want it.
Protection costs are a drop in the ocean relative to how much money people earn and it is affordable.
Your clients will buy protection when they understand it. That’s why proper advice just cannot be beaten.
Aviva AMRA changes
Ok, I’m going to change the tone now to something completely different and it’s from Aviva.
Aviva have just sent some notification about some AMRA changes they are introducing to their application process.
AMRA stands for ‘Access to Medical Records Act’.
What Aviva are doing is effectively bringing in measures to speed up the overall application process and this is especially where they need to obtain further medical information.
So what you will see is a section within the application journey which includes an AMRA declaration – you’ll know that some providers already do this.
Aviva tell us that by having an ’AMRA’ declaration, they can speed up claim payments for situations where there is a need to get additional medical information from the GP. It speeds up the process because they already have the consent.
So, with effect from 21st November, for all protection applicants, your clients will need to provide an Access to Medical Reports Act (AMRA) consent form and this will include their GP details as part of the online journey.
You will see this at the start of the protection application journey.
Aviva say that in the situations where medical evidence is required, building these changes in will allow them to request medical evidence as soon as an application is received which should help to avoid unnecessary delays.
Have you ever had an unexpected protection claim?
Well, I’m going to answer that question as YES. I know that because I’ve spoken to many of you and I’ve heard quite a few examples.
Josephine Wolo from JW Mortgages & Protection told me about a client she went back to see. When Jo asked how she was since they last spoke, the client mentioned that she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. From what I understand it was caught early and the client didn’t really suffer.
But what didn’t she realise?
That she had a critical illness policy and she might be able to claim.
Jo got in touch with the life company and they paid out a proportionate benefit.
I remember another example of an adviser who went back to do a remortgage and the client had had a heart attack. It wasn’t as severe as it could have been but again, the client was oblivious he could claim on his policy.
The adviser got in touch with the life company and hey presto; they paid out around £150k.
Again, this is why advisers are so important. Clients just leave the policy document in the draw. They don’t scrutinize all the details so it’s good to keep in touch with your clients. Check in every now and again and look to revisit their protection portfolio.
Alan Knowles who is MD at Cura and won a bunch of awards at the Cover Summit this week… he posted a short note on linked in.
He said that he recently reviewed one of his client’s protections plans and found his client had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.
Alan’s client didn’t think she might be eligible to make a claim because she was still working full time and the arthritis wasn’t hugely affecting her.
But the policy was a Serious Illness Cover plan with Vitality and it was the more comprehensive version; Serious Illness Cover Plus.
Alan found out in a very short space of time that Vitality confirmed the client was able to eligible for a 10% pay out based on her diagnosis – which equated to £10,000.
Alan said “‘it’s not a life changing amount, but will certainly help and she will still be covered for more if her condition progresses in the future’.
Alan finished his post by saying – this is just one of the reasons why I love my job.
Can you let me know if you’ve had one of these situations during your career?
I’d really love to hear from you and this is the kind of thing that truly demonstrates the power of advice by advisers!
This week’s Protection Insight Podcast – British Friendly Breathing Space
As you know we’ve been running with an IP theme over the past few weeks and this week I caught up with Adam Shipton from British Friendly to talk about their breathing space product.
Again, it’s a product from the IP family with some really nice innovations.
It’s not a long podcast but it will give you a good flavour of what the product is all about so please check that out – it’s attached to this week’s protection update.
See you next week!
I am really looking forward to seeing you at our roadshows that start next week.
Please come along and support these events if you can because we do want to give you more support next year than you’ve ever had before – not just on protection but across all the different propositions.
But we do need to understand the best geographical locations to host our roadshows so please come along. If you’ve not already registered, I’ve added a full set of links at the bottom of this week’s protection update and it isn’t too late if you do it right now.
So, that’s it from me for another week.
Have a great weekend and I’ll see you at the roadshows starting with Cardiff next week!
