Hi everyone and welcome to this week’s protection update – Friday 6th May.
It really was great to see so many of you last week at the NTE. It really was quite the hive of activity and I think I, for one, needed that bank holiday weekend.
If you looked at my protection update last week, I couldn’t really talk about the actual NTE because I recorded that on Tuesday. If you didn’t see my update, it was a research piece specifically about Guaranteed Insurability Options and who does what across the market.
If that sounds interesting, I’ve added the link to this week’s protection update and you’ll also find this on the Protection Sourcing Tools page (you’ll remember I talked about another protection guru article a few weeks ago specific to smokers and which providers class certain types of ‘smoking’ as smokers…
So let’s get started… I’ve got quite a few things I need to cover this week.
The Protection Forum – What is it and how do I start using it?
Now one of the things which makes this network special, in my opinion, is the way we all do and can work together.
Something I wanted to do when I joined the network was have a place where we could all communicate, talk to each other, ask questions, have those questions answered… something like a chat room but about business goals specific to each proposition.
Well, myself and the rest of the products team have just relaunched our Product Forums.
If you click on each of the product areas on the adviser site, you will see a big button that says “Visit the Forums”
If you go to the Protection Forums button, you’ll see a few recent posts. If it asks you to register; register and also don’t forget to tick the box to automatically receive a reply to the question you have asked – or someone else has asked.
From my point of view, I’m going to push out messages there myself about important things you need to know about.
But the more of us that use the forums, the more powerful it will become.
Let’s say you’ve got a client who you’re trying to find cover for, but you’re a bit stuck. Add that as a question on the protection forum and someone will answer it. It might be me, it could be another member of staff, it could be a provider or it could be another adviser within the network. Once that question has been answered; the question along with the replies in the thread will be saved. And that can help your fellow advisers who visit the forum again and again in the future
So, I’ve added a link to this week’s protection update to the protection forum. There aren’t many posts at the moment because none of you know about it, but if you click on the link to the protection forum…
Click here for the protection forum
HSBC Life – What you need to know
You’ll see a post from me that says “HSBC Life – What you need to know”
Now the post does speak for itself but you should now know that HSBC Life have joined our protection panel last Thursday at the NTE.
I’m really excited to have them onboard because they are a high-quality proposition with some really interesting and features and benefits.
We’ve built a provider page which will get you started with an overview to the proposition and we will get to hear more from HSBC Life at our upcoming protection and GI roadshows that take place around the country in June.
But here’s a couple of key things from me:
- You will be able to quote for HSBC Life on Solution Builder (that’s Life cover and Critical Illness Cover) and the pricing is very competitive right now.
- But, here’s a big thing; they don’t do waiver of premium. So, if you ask for Waiver to be included, you won’t see HSBC Life as part of your quote return.
- HSBC Life offer a Critical Illness Cover Plus plan… which really is high quality and if you take a look at CI Expert; for certain clients, its one of the highest scoring products on the market.
They’ve got a great BDM team and, as I said, they will be present at lots more of our events this year and beyond.
Click here for HSBC Life Provider Page
IPTF Adviser Survey
And finally, If I said the letters I P T F to you; would you know what I was talking about?
You should – they are the Income Protection Task Force and they are an industry body with the sole aim of driving up income protection sales across the industry.
We do really well with Life and Critical Illness sales, but Income Protection still isn’t where it needs to be in terms of the number of people who take out a plan each and every year.
Now one thing which is special about income protection is that it needs to be advised. It literally needs to be advised by an adviser and when you look at the risk probability of making an actual claim; you’ve typically got more chance of taking time off from work through sickness or incapacity than you are to die or get a terrible critical illness.
The IPTF are in the middle of setting up the industry wide Income Protection Campaign we’re going to see later this year, but they need your help.
To help shape that campaign, they have put together a very simple adviser survey which I’d like you to take a minute to complete.
Please be honest with the responses because this is another nut we need to crack. Income Protection is sick pay. But it’s sick pay you control – not someone else like your employer or the government. Everyone should have a back up plan but there are reasons why income protection is the lesser sold protection policy compared to life cover and critical illness Cover.
I’ve added a link to this week’s protection update – please click on it and do the survey – it will take you 2 minutes!
Click here for the Income Protection Survey
Let’s talk about Protection – Next Friday
Now the registration link has been open for a few weeks and our prime focus has been on the NTE; but that has passed now, so next Friday we’re running a brand-new workshop called “Let’s talk about Protection”.
It’s a different type of session because what I hope is going to happen is you’re going to get to hear from lots of other advisers.
I will host the session and I’ve got a set of talking points up for discussion. These are all things that sit around the sales process; sales ideas, communication, what you say to clients, how you say things and lots more.
We’re not inviting any providers to these sessions because we won’t be talking about product solutions.
We’ve got other webinars on the horizon that will involve providers and I’ll promote these over the coming weeks and months, but this one is a bit different and I’d like to run a few more of them.
It’s on Zoom so you don’t have to travel anywhere and I do know we’ve already got quite a lot of registrations but there is still a bit of room. I’ve added the registration link for next Friday’s session, so register now and I’ll see you there.
Click here to Register to the Let’s talk about Protection webinar
So that’s it from me for another week.
Please get behind the forums, register for ‘Let’s talk about Protection’, do the survey for the IPTF, and check out HSBC Life.
Have a great weekend everyone!
