Later, he turned to protection completely “owing to the financial crash in 2008 as no-one could get a mortgage any more and this area temporarily died a death.”
He adds: “We now work with many firms who signpost their clients to us for specialist advice. Increasingly, we are finding that firms are accepting they can’t ignore the protection conversation with clients, so they are choosing to refer.”
Emma Walker, chief marketing officer at LifeSearch, comments that signposting now gives advisers two clear ways to step out of the protection process.
This can be done in a way that brings no regulatory or reputational liability and yet still allows advisers to do right by their clients.
She says: “Instead of simply leaving protection well alone – ignoring client needs in this area because you feel you lack the expertise, there’s too much medical hassle or insurer friction – all advisers now have an opportunity to treat their customers fairly: something that any honest financial advice or planning professional is duty bound to do.
“Now, advisers can still avoid risk and yet help the client as they know they should, by a) simply agree with the client that they need to review their protection then refer to a specialist to take it from there. Or b) direct the client to the new BIBA Find-A-Protection-Adviser service. BIBA will connect you to a fully vetted, specialist firm.”
Best interests over financial incentives
Of course, with signposting comes the need for advisers to both recognise the limits of what they can offer and move away from thoughts that the client is “theirs” to a world where they ensure the customer’s absolute best interests are key, adds Knowles.
Cura specialises in providing protection insurance for people are seen to be high risk, quirky or non-standard.
More than 90 per cent of its business is helping customers who have struggled elsewhere, in both direct and advised markets.
In short, like Future Proof, Cura’s business is heavily involved in signposting already.
In addition to having policies with all the major protection providers, they also have access to a number of non-standard options, which allows them to write some protection where others cannot.
Knowles points out he will signpost customers to specialists even if there is no financial incentive for him to do so “because it’s the right thing to do”.
“If someone comes to me and needs private medical, mortgage or pension advice, for example, I send them on to a specialist in that area and there is often a commercial business arrangement in place with the person that I refer to.
“There is now an expectation from the regulator that duty of care is shown by advisers and in fact last year we saw the FOS rule against an adviser for dismissing life cover as ‘likely being unavailable due to previous medical conditions’ without having done sufficient research.”
