How to increase your protection business
Guest Blog Writer: Carl Heard, National Account Manager at LV=
24 June 2024Almost like a relationship that perhaps isn’t quite working out…where you start to think ‘is it you or me’?
Not wishing to start a new line in marriage counselling, perhaps however we can start to think about how to at least ‘freshen up’ that relationship with clients and recreate that protection ‘spark’.
Freshening up
One element Consumer Duty introduced in 2023 was a prompt to check in on your client relationships. To not only act in good faith, but to think more about how you interact with them, support them, and ensure they understand what’s being discussed.When Consumer Duty talks about the ‘design of products and services’ as one of the four outcomes, it is easy to think that relates to the creation of products (the manufacturer / insurance provider). However, even as ‘the distributor’ this outcome also relates to you and your business. You create the advice service that you offer your clients and how you manage that client relationship is within your control.
When did you last review how you interact with your clients? Where does the positioning of the protection need sit within your processes and marketing of your business? With so many challenges and disruption within the mortgage market, does that positioning of protection need a refresh?
If we think first about the ‘shop window’ of your business. This could be your website, social media or that first client meeting. How does the client know that part of your qualified advice will be to discuss their protection needs?
The first date
Within the latest Viewpoint research from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, 77% of advisers said they raised protection either at the introduction or fact find stage of the client relationship¹. So as a first step towards this new refreshed relationship, consider when a client appreciates the support you can offer them in respect of protection advice. Is it on your website? Do you talk about it in your social media posts? Are you introducing it early into the relationship with your client? One tool that stands out as being a clear way to put protection on the radar for clients is by using a risk calculator.
LV’s risk reality calculator is a tool that can be accessed directly by your clients. By highlighting the tool, your clients can start to appreciate life risks that drive the need for protection. With no links to a product solution (and a clear recommendation to consult their adviser), the risks illustrated by the tool can be used within that initial ‘shop window’ of your client interactions. Ensuring that your client is appreciating the importance of the protection conversation that will be taking place.
The conversation starter
As part of that new (or renewed) relationship with your client, you want that conversation to be engaging. Crucially you also want to understand as much about their lives as possible to offer them the protection advice they need.When did you last review the questions you ask your clients? Are they generating the responses that ensure your clients are engaged when you discuss protection?
Our recent Reaching Resilience research revealed the average UK worker supports 3 people from their income, and 10% are supporting 5 or more people². When your client considers their outgoings from their income, are they considering the loved ones that it supports, or do they think about outgoings on their bank statements? Within our research we asked who else relies on that person’s income, which had included responses you’d expect such as partner or younger children. However, that question also opened up a much wider response, such as older children; parents; and other family members. Your clients have a wide variety of loved ones that depend on their income and are not just financial transactions.
Back to consumer duty, one of the three cross-cutting rules is that ‘firms must enable and support retail customers to pursue their financial objectives’. It’s easy to assume that paying a mortgage and keeping a roof over a family’s head is a ‘financial objective’, however consider for a moment what your own ‘financial objectives’ would be. Perhaps it would be pension provision; to financially support your children through university; a family holiday each year; or just being able to support family members financially should the need arise. Asking a client what their own ‘financial objectives’ are can create that wide response and personal attachment to how important their income is to support those objectives.
Taking that relationship to the next step
Now it’s time to take your relationship into the next stage as you’re both ready to commit… time for you to recommend the protection products that will support your clients in their time of need. At LV=, we’re committed to helping you ensure your clients can become financially resilient, and our range of income protection products are there to support your clients should they be unable to work due to injury or illness.
We also understand how important it is to keep those relationships ‘current’ and our range of member benefits such as access to a private GP and support services such as physiotherapy will enable your client to remain engaged with their LV= policy and their relationship with you.
Our account managers can support you as you broaden those protection conversations, increasing the number of clients undertaking that next step of your relationship.
¹AMI Protection Viewpoint 2023 – The Perception Gap: Research carried out by Opinium Research, 12th – 19th July 2023. 3,000 UK adults, 436 Independent Financial Advisers / Mortgage Advisers and 15 adults in the community group.
² LV= Reaching Resilience report: data used in this report comes from a survey of 4,000 nationally representative UK adults conducted for LV= by Opinium in between 23 November and 3 December 2023.
