It’s also an opportunity for them to demonstrate their expertise and the value they add for their clients.
FTA: To what extent has it lived up to your expectations?
CJ: It’s great to see the immediate impact it’s had in the protection market, benefiting customers and creating more opportunities for advisers.
It’s now up to us as an industry to maximise that opportunity and make sure it delivers the leap forward the market needs.
FTA: Which areas of protection need to see improvement still, be it on the adviser or provider side?
CJ: The industry needs to become more efficient across the value chain. Technology has moved us forward and enabled more sophisticated and personalised cover, along with a much better experience for customers, including a broader range of value-added services.
On the flip-side it sometimes enables complexity and additional cost.
Protection products work well, but there are areas where the industry needs to improve, where customer expectations may not always be met.
The most obvious example is terminal illness, where we need to change the benefit or the language – an industry standard on the latter would help here to remove confusion.
As an old(ish) actuary, I know the rationale for adding this benefit to death cover, but we need to consider what customers expect and the potential impact this may have.
The onus on customer testing to ensure real understanding helps to flush out areas like this where we can improve.
We need to remember protection products support customers at often the most vulnerable times in their lives, so we need to continue to encourage protection policies to be written under trust and encourage more widespread use of benefits nominations.
Both can really help make sure the intended people get the proceeds when they need it, in as short a time as possible.
FTA: When it comes to ongoing service, are advisers more engaged with their protection clients now than they were before?
CJ: Many are – where it is a core part of their advice process, protection is included in ongoing reviews. Others are less involved and are seeking providers to play a bigger role here, to keep their clients informed.
Either way, protection is no longer a product people take out and forget about.
As well as the product itself, the value-added services are becoming increasingly important, for example accessing GP or counselling services can be invaluable.
Ongoing engagement provides reassurance and can create further opportunities for additional or increased cover as customers move through different life stages and needs.
This is an area where technology has really helped. It is now much easier for providers to share data and help keep advisers informed, so in turn they can be more engaged with their clients.
