John Ritchie envisages a changing tide for protection advisers as auto-enrolment comes into play.
It is becoming quite standard to ask about gender when talking to anyone in the provider side of the industry these days, so it is a bit of a relief to interview someone from one of the few that have assessed the situation and come out the other side.
Of course, this does not mean John Ritchie, chief executive of group risk specialists Ellipse, has no opinion, that would not really be his style. He said: "We have already got quite a lot of flex on unisex rates. And it was a relatively minor thing for us to do.
"We knew this was coming a long way up the track. Perhaps we should reflect as insurers on why it seems to have been quite a big fuss and why advisers have felt that we have not collectively looked after them well in terms of managing their pipeline."
Pipeline and continuity in adviser's business, effectively the productivity of advisers, post-Retail Distribution Review (RDR) is Ellipse's main focus at the moment. Rather radically, Ritchie wants to see advisers fundamentally change the way they do business.
"Advisers have to stop intermediating," he said. "Consulting is what you will get paid a decent fee for; if you do it well, you probably also get a trail commission. If you intermediate, if you touch lots of things between client and insurance companies, that is low-value work.
"Smart advisers are now looking at designing intermediation out of their activity: designing programmes, reviewing programmes, reviewing providers, getting good value and good structure. Ditch the intermediation."
Added layer of risk
This approach could be seen as adding a layer of operational risk, consulting and then passing off all the work to a third party. Ellipse's counter to this is that the risk actually lies in the hand-offs.
Ritchie said: "A big issue for advisers is professional indemnity cover. We are seeing some networks really bite the dust because of their inability to get professional indemnity cover. So an adviser needs to think about breaks in process and places where there is operational and therefore liability risk for them.
"So the smart ones do want to hand-off to a good provider because it reduces operational risk and exposure in their business.
