Overview

Protection is the foundation of financial wellbeing

It is widely acknowledged that good protection provides the foundation of personal financial wellbeing. It is fortunate that in today’s challenging economic climate, the cost of protection cover is relatively low and the range of options is high, with leading insurers continuing to compete keenly on price and through innovative products, designed to deliver increasing flexibility.

The choice of protection products available can be a real minefield. The first task for the adviser is to establish the client’s essential product needs – such as income protection, critical illness cover, term assurance, whole of life, family income benefit or combined term assurance and critical illness. There are then are other considerations such as writing the policy under trust, does the client want waiver of premium, should premiums be renewable, guaranteed, level or indexed? That’s before even considering the different premium options, such as exclusions.

We can help

We all recognise that an adviser’s main duty is to ‘treat their customers fairly’ – and this means finding the right product – not simply the lowest price. Until now this has been a time consuming process for advisers.

In today’s market, the key elements in recommending a protection contract to a client are:

• Ensuring suitability by demonstrating the research undertaken to arrive at a recommendation.
• Acquiring comparative quote for the recommended product (and then ideally transacting the business online to ensure cover is arranged swiftly and with maximum commission).