I am going to begin my summary of the week by highlighting our January Advice Tech Forum. This looks like it will be a fascinating session which will discuss what advisers want from platforms, pensions and savings providers in 2022 that they don’t currently provide. If you are an adviser wanting to share your thoughts on what platforms and savings providers could do to help you more, or you work for a platform, insurer, asset manager, DFM or technology supplier to any of the above you really should join this event. You can request a ticket here.
In our normal AdviserSoftware.com content we started the week looking at how Be-IQ are combining a traditional psychometric questionnaire style approach, to measure attitude to investment risk, with a gamified decision system, to capture a client’s situational behaviours.
On Wednesday, we continued our look back at our October Advice Tech Forum where in Part 2 we discussed whether hybrid advice is the future. The session also focused on the hybrid advice solution M&G are developing and the ways it answers some of the pitfalls of previous digital advice solutions.
We ended the week with a look at the Suitability Report Writing Tool from ATEB Suitability and how it aims to help firms create personalised and consistent reports.
Before we look at the content shared, I am going to start by asking a favour of any adviser who uses Protection Guru. We really hope you find the service valuable and if you do, I would really appreciate it if you could take just a couple of minutes to click on this link and submit your vote for the insurer you consider the outstanding provider of the year. We are asking you to vote for just one provider, the insurer you think has been truly outstanding over the last 12 months. If you can give us a sentence or two telling us why that would be great too, but please take just a few minutes to vote.
Turning to our normal content we began the week on Protection Guru looking at the stories behind critical illness claims and a new case study video published by Legal & General. For anyone who hasn’t yet been on our Claims Hub, there is a wealth of information on there on all things claim, including numerous real-life case studies and videos, claims stats and our claims infographics. We’re always on the lookout for more case studies and stories, so do get in touch if you have anything to share with us.
Continuing with the theme of claims, on Tuesday Amanda Newman-Smith examined which claims teams have the strongest service standards. This important insight looked at the training insurers’ claims teams receive, accepted methods of notifying them of claims and what documentation they accept.
Following our January forum on Tuesday and a lively discussion around electronic GP reports and how the industry can improve the uptake of these, on Wednesday Rob Harvey published a timely insight looking at which insurers have the highest threshold for automatically requesting GP reports. This covered income protection, critical illness and life insurance and the automatic limits insurers apply.
Thursday’s insight focused on life insurance and specifically which insurers make it easy to keep mortgage life cover on track if interest rates move. We finished the week on Friday with a round-up piece, looking at the cover some providers include on protection plans for accidents, fractures, traumatic injuries and hospitalisation.
I would also like thank Stacey Reeve from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, Johnny Timpson OBE and David Mead from Future Proof for their excellent presentation at our Protection Guru Forum event on Tuesday, covering both the impact of the new FCA Consumer Duty and the current state of affairs relating to electronic GPR reports. Both are hugely important issues that advisers and insurers need to fully understand. If you could not attend our event look out for the transcript of each session being published on our website shortly.
On Benefits Guru this week we looked back at 2021’s Financial Wellness ratings as we are just about to start the process for this year’s analysis. If you are a provider of wellness services and would like to be included, please do get in touch so we can explain how you can participate in the 2022 Financial Wellness ratings. Just to be clear, we do not charge organisations for entering our benchmarking.
Thursday’s insight looked at Investment Governance Committees (IGCs), exploring what they are, what they report on, and the new rules surrounding their operation that came into force in February 2021. These are going to have a dramatic effect on the market, and it is really important for advisers to understand what new information IGCs may have a regulatory duty to deliver to employers later in the year.
Finally, we have a winter sale on for our Empowering Advice Through Technology conference. Because of Omicron we had to take the decision to postpone the show from late January to 26th May but the event is really shaping up to be a great conference with some stunning new technologies that have real potential to transform the advice industry being shown. You can read the full agenda and book your discounted tickets here. I look forward to welcoming you to the show.
Have a great weekend everyone.
