Do you have a Protection conversation with every customer?
Since we started using Elevation for customer feedback, we have been given a lot more information and insight into the customer journey.
Some of the key highlights on the Elevate reports are the questions around protection.
This has highlighted a number of clients that would have appreciated a protection conversation but didn’t receive one.
Following Consumer Duty, we enhanced our process on protection and introduced the mandatory requirement to complete the Insurance Your Needs tab on OMS. So long as this is completed as part of the fact-finding process, every customer will have a protection conversation.
But why is this important?
Should someone stop receiving a salary, even for a short period of time, they can quickly go into arrears with their mortgage lender and typically, lenders will start repossession proceedings after just three months of not receiving payments.
This is why protection is so important, but a conversation must take place for a policy to be sold.
Simply asking a customer about their savings and how long they could maintain their commitments should they lose their job is a great start to the conversation.
Whilst we have the questions on the Insurance Your Needs tab, this isn’t a script, and each adviser will have their approach to determining the need for protection.
Other questions to consider are:
- If they died, would their partner be able to maintain the mortgage repayments or would they like the mortgage to be repaid in full?
- How long will their employer provide full sick pay if they are unable to work?
- If they were to be put on statutory sick pay, would they be able to maintain their commitments including their mortgage?
These are all questions your customers may not have considered but should form part of your fact-finding process. The answers given will then determine if there is a need for protection.
For further information, we have a Protection Process guide in the Operations Manual.
This will help you with the protection process questions; however, if you have further questions, you can always speak to anyone in the Compliance team, who will be happy to help.
Observations
One of the changes we are making to assist advisers is introducing protection role plays.
This will either be as a stand-alone role play or included with the existing mortgage observations.
These role plays will then give us the ability to provide coaching and support that will, in turn, help you with having these conversations with your customers.
Training
Please remember that we run Protection training courses on a monthly basis that are free to attend for any existing adviser. So, if you feel you would benefit from re-attending this, please do not hesitate to contact the Member Support team.
Kind regards
Alan Baldwin
Director of Compliance
For any questions or queries, contact the Compliance Team
Call : 01708 676110