This week, while Ian is on vacation, it’s my time to provide our AdviserSoftware.com weekly wrap-up.
We started the week by highlighting the latest innovations from Oxford Risk, including their new Responsible Investing assessment.
On our Advice Tech Hub, we provide extensive analysis of several Risk Profiling Tools to make it easier for you to understand the full capabilities of your current system and the others available in the market. All our Risk Profiling/Suitability Tools analysis can be found here.
At the end of the week, we showcased our analysis of Portfolio Cloud, following a detailed demo of their analysis and rebalancing tools. Portfolio Cloud provides a flexible suite of tools to automate and streamline end-to-end investment advice processes.
How do you analyse your portfolios? We invite advisers to share their thoughts on the tools they currently use, helping others find the solutions that best fit them. Rate your Portfolio Analysis Tool here.
To access all the content on AdviserSoftware.com new users will need to create an FTRC account, which is completely free for Adviser Firms.
Don’t have an account yet? Please click here!
Finally, our Empowering Advice Through Technology (EATT) conference is fast approaching. At our event, you’ll get the information and validation you need to choose the right technology for your business. We’ll have everything you need to make the best decisions, including keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and an exhibition hall full of exhibitors.
Here’s where you can learn more.
AdviserSoftware.com Users: use code AS15 for an extra 15% discount on tickets prices, which can be purchased here.
Protection Guru
With Adam and Ian both away on holiday this week, it was Rob Harvey’s turn to take over our regular end of week round-up. As ever, it’s been another busy content packed week on Protection Guru, with a diverse and varied range of topics covered.
Whilst reflecting on some of what we’ve covered, I was drawn to a recent article by Kevin Carr in Money Marketing, talking about the need for the industry to share more on the good work we do. Kevin makes an important point, that often the industry just doesn’t do enough to shout about protection and therefore reach more consumers. There’s perhaps a number of reasons for this, such as a reluctance to talk about death and illness as they’re not exactly positive subjects, as Kevin highlights. There are however countless opportunities for insurers and advisers to communicate more about the fantastic work the industry does.
There are two major health awareness campaigns running for the month of April: Bowel Cancer Awareness Month and Stress Awareness Month. We covered the former with a dedicated insight on Tuesday, examining how the condition is covered on critical illness plans and also including a genuine Aviva claim case study video. These case studies not only highlight the value of having cover in place, but can help to dispel any myths that insurers don’t pay out. Let’s shout about it and publish and share these stories with as many people as possible.
On Thursday was the World Health Organization backed World Health Day, an annual awareness day, this year with a focus on keeping humans healthy and the importance of wellbeing. To coincide with this we launched a new insurer Showcase Page, covering Royal London’s Helping Hand benefits and services. A major new focus of Helping Hand is supporting clients manage their health and wellbeing, as advisers can find out about on the page.
We regularly write about health and wellbeing support services on Protection Guru, indeed we covered second medical opinion services on Wednesday, because we believe they can offer real value to clients. They can also be a great opportunity to have a positive conversation about protection insurance, not focused on death or illness, but about helping people to lead a healthier life, support them with their everyday wellbeing and provide access to treatment or recovery services as and when needed.
Communicating with consumers as an industry is also a topic we’ve covered recently on our regular Protection Forum. On Thursday we published the second discussion from our March forum, focusing on underwriting language and on Friday a round-up of all the Q1 forum discussions.
One of the challenges we face is overwhelming consumers with complex jargon, or worse still insensitive language if they do purchase cover and have to go through the underwriting process. The forum discussions highlighted some interesting ideas and solutions, such as a better use of technology and more innovative ways of engaging with clients (such as social media or video content). These forum summary insights are well worth reading.
As an industry we don’t stand still either and this year alone so far we’ve seen plenty of product improvements and enhancements. Just this week Royal London announced a big improvement to their income protection underwriting limits, hopefully making the application journey easier for advisers and their clients. Whilst on Tuesday we covered British Friendly’s increase to their maximum IP benefit, allowing clients to cover themselves for a higher monthly benefit amount.
So, looking back over just one weeks’ worth of protection coverage on our site, it seems to me there is much good for us to talk about, we just need to put more of it in front of consumers.
Have a great weekend everyone!
