Empowering Advice Through Technology is back and everything else from this week

With Ian taking a well-earned break, I am delighted to round things up this week and share the content we continue to make available via the Advice Tech Hub.

I want to start by highlighting that our parent company, FTRC, are delighted to announce the return of their Empowering Advice Through Technology conference which will be held in central London on 27^th January 2022. 

Have you heard about Empowering Advice Through Technology 2022? 

If you are an adviser who is looking to drive real change in your firm, this is a practical day designed to help advisers:  

• Understand how emerging technologies can enhance the user experience for clients
• Recognise the benefits that technology can deliver to their business in terms of time savings and reduced operating costs
• Source the technology solutions that best meet their needs

The conference will comprise of four plenary sessions exploring different areas that are essential for adviser firms to consider, combined with sixteen “disturbance demos” to show leading edge technology which can help transform advice businesses.  

The conference programme will be complemented by an exhibition area, providing delegates with the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with event speakers and demoing companies over refreshment breaks, lunch and a drinks reception to close the event. 

To coincide with the launch, we have “Super Early Bird” ticket prices for advisers who register by 30^th November 2021.  

For more details about the conference, and to book your place, please visit www.advisersoftware.com/eatt-2022 

In our regular content on AdviserSoftware.com this week, we began the week with a review for mortgage brokers by looking at Sourcing Brain, from Mortgage Brain.  

On Tuesday we examined DD|Hub’s solution for managing due diligence information on providers, their services and products.  

Wednesday’s insight focused on Feedsy and their advanced client engagement (ACE) program, which helps source content and share this with customers on behalf of advisers.  

Finally, the Iress XPlan client portal was the subject of our Thursday insight.  

Our next Investment Forum meeting will take place on Tuesday 23^rd November at 11am.  The discussion will centre around advances in investment service advice being delivered in the US and Australia using advice tech:   

• It will feature a look at one of the most exciting new financial technology systems in the world from InterGen Data which recently won third place at the UBS Future of Finance 2021 challenge. 
• Also, Finocomp from Australia will explain what they are trying to achieve with their Cobalt CGT calculation tool, MPM model portfolio management service for financial advisers and DFMs and their Insight Portfolio Performance tool. 

Advisers can register for a complimentary ticket to attend the event via this link. 

Over on Protection Guru, it was a particularly busy week as we ran our monthly Forum on Tuesday with the main topic being how to better provide clients with information on their in-force protection plans. It was fantastic to hear ideas from both advisers and insurers and as ever heart-warming to hear stories of how advisers using annual statements have led to amazing consumer outcomes.  

Full details of the discussions will be published on the site over the next few weeks. We now look forward to our last Protection Forum meeting of 2022 (yes, it is that late in the year already!), which will be held on Tuesday 7^th December at 11am. The agenda for this festive session will be issued in due course, however in the interim, advisers can register to attend the event free of charge via this link.  

This week also saw Andy Peters return to the protection world as Interim Director of Distribution & Sales at Cirencester Friendly. Andy played huge roles at Scottish Provident, Bright Grey, Royal London and more recently in the rebirth of Guardian. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge and is a huge coup for Cirencester Friendly! We wish Andy and the team the best of luck.

Before we go into more detail on the past week at Protection Guru, I would also like to point Protection Guru readers to the AMI Protection Viewpoint 2021 webinar. Last year’s results brought quite a few home truths and highlighted a number of discrepancies between adviser and consumer thinking. I am sure this year’s research will not disappoint and as such this is a must attend event for both advisers and insurers.

You can register for the session here. 

Moving on to our regular insights, on Monday Robert Harvey examined LV=’s return to offering Day One and one week deferred periods for the self-employed under their Personal Sick Pay policy. This was a great way to start the week and hopefully demonstrates yet more signals that the protection industry is moving on from COVID.

We produced the initial round-up of our Protection Guru Awards on Tuesday, focusing on the winners from the Individual Adviser category.  Our second insight of the day saw Rob compare the differences between insurers for life insurance non-medical underwriting limits.  

On Wednesday we turned our attention to the Adviser Firm winners from the awards. Rob also investigated which insurers offer fracture cover and how they compare.  

Thursday’s initial insight continued with the review of our Protection Guru Awards, this time highlighting the winners in the Insurer Awards category.  

On Friday, Rob wrote a review of the changes that British Friendly have introduced including fantastic improvements to their guaranteed insurability options and host of other improvements. See the full review here.

Finally, over on our sister site, Benefits Guru, Kat Mitchell produced a detailed analysis of which providers have payroll integrations with Xero on Tuesday.  We followed this up on Thursday with an insight focusing on the providers who have payroll integrations with Sage.  

Have a great weekend everyone!