Cirencester friendly warns of FSA protection scrutiny

Cirencester friendly has said IFAs should not be held solely responsible for ensuring the working population is properly protected, but warned the FSA is watching them.

The holloway income protection (IP) provider called on the industry and government to work together and increase awareness of the public's need to protect themselves.

However it also noted that people must wake-up to their responsibilities and cannot rely on the state to support them.

Paul Hudson, chief executive of Cirencester friendly, made the statement in response to the FSA's protection data which showed IP sales fell 7% in 2010-11.

He revealed that in contrast, during 2010 Cirencester friendly saw a 5% increase in membership.

Hudson urged advisers to prioritise clients' protection needs, saying it was "difficult to envisage many situations where the absence of an income protection contract would be a sound financial strategy".

"Furthermore the FSA is very keen to ensure that IFAs are meeting all the financial needs of their clients and it reported that only 40% of retail investment intermediaries advise on all three protection products.

"The regulator's report went on to say that although this could be attributed, in part, to the different customer profiles in different firms they would be concerned if this were an indication that relatively few advisers consider a client's full range of protection needs," he added.

Despite this scrutiny, Hudson continued by arguing that other parts of the sector must play their part and remove some of the burden from IFAs, and repeated his demand for all providers to produce IP claims statistics.

"The responsibility for ensuring the working population is properly protected cannot lie solely at the feet of the IFA," he said.

"Providers need to ensure that products are fit for purpose, affordable and encourage transparency across the industry particularly in terms of claims statistics.

"And the consumer must recognise that they too have a personal responsibility to ensure they can meet their financial commitments and that they can no longer rely on the State to provide for them.

"Finally, more must be done by the industry and those in Government to raise the profile of income protection among consumers and to support the IFAs who distribute it," he added.