Don ’ t settle for the ‘ new normal ’ for your 2022 protection business
Emma Vaughan Head of Protection Services SimplyBiz
You have probably already heard that the protection sales numbers are predicted to be low in 2022 . The focus will be on remortgages , with interest rates coming to an end and the conversion for protection will go through the floor as it usually does when mortgages take priority . This may sound a bit doom and gloom but , even if it is the case , it means that there are more opportunities to review your customers protection requirements . We will still be talking about the pandemic and how it has affected nearly everyone in the past two years , so the protection message should be stronger now than ever . Budgets may be tight with inflation and the increase in everyday living , but this also highlights that if a customer doesn ’ t have any protection in place , then they have no hope of finding the money to pay for everything if they are off due to accident , illness or injury .
With the number of protection policies sold far less than the number of mortgages being taken out , we are still missing a massive proportion of our customers and not offering them the best outcomes . Whilst I understand that we cannot add more hours to an already busy 24 , without sounding like a cliché , we can start working smarter not harder . We just need to be prepared to ask for a little help .
The world has changed and so have your customers . We need to be speaking to them more regularly and , with all the means of communication we have at our fingertips , there really is no excuse any longer . It has been reported that over 60 % of younger customers prefer to have their financial advice in a face-to-face setting , but having the right technology in place can save you a lot of time when it comes to quoting and processing applications . Gone are the days where you needed to quote on every insurer ’ s website , speak to their presales teams and then answer 50 pages of medical questions .
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Budgets may be tight with inflation and the increase in everyday living , but this also highlights that if a customer doesn ’ t have any protection in place , then they have no hope of finding the money to pay for everything if they are off due to accident , illness or injury .
We are now at a place where we can do all of those things on one platform , which can dramatically reduce our administrative time , freeing up more time to be spent with customers .
Some firms have even gone a step further and incorporated an electronic fact find into their sales process , so the customer is in control of the data they provide . This also means that , at their first meeting , the adviser is already aware of the hard facts so can focus on the soft facts and getting to
6 | THE PROTECTION ADVISER