Letter: Promoting Protection campaign
Following a conversation with COVER about its Promoting Protection campaign I am guessing that by now it has received a lot of support from many in the industry and, in particular, the community that specialises in the provision of protection advice.
For my part, anything that increases awareness about the need for high-quality protection among the general public must be a good thing.
Consider this market from a consumer's perspective for a moment and you soon come to realise that there is so much more that we could be doing collectively to improve the health of our market through the experiences of customers.
Our trade magazines are full of reports of expert opinions that income protection (IP) needs overhauling because many advisers don't understand it and therefore can't confidently advise on it. And the statistics point to advisers selling mortgage payment protection insurance to nearly four times as many customers as they do IP.
On critical illness cover we have 20% of claims declined, with half of those due to customers, presumably with some support, failing to fill out their forms properly (also known as non-disclosure), with the other half declined because they have claimed for something the policy doesn't cover, which must point to some misunderstanding of the benefits offered.
As for the simplest of all our products, life cover, few non-specialists are recommending the benefits of family income benefits over level term for family protection (less than 10%), and, according to a recent survey, only 6% of advisers are recommending to clients that their life policies are placed in trust.
To me, all of this points to a need for us to address the clear and present problems with 'protection planning' through education, training and ultimately a form of licensing following proof of competence through examination.
I would be delighted to support the Promoting Protection campaign if it stresses the importance of advisers being adequately trained.
For the industry to realise its full potential we need the majority of advisers providing high quality, appropriate, professional, protection planning advice. Only then will we have the protection equivalent of high definition, which will no doubt get people talking about us for the right reasons and buying our products in the quantities we all know they should be.
Richard Verdin
Sales and marketing director
Direct Life & Pension Services
