We recently announced the integration between CURO and iPipeline's "Solution Builder". To celebrate, I thought I would write about the case for financial planning firms to go back to basics and sell more protection as a key element to a robust financial plan.

When I joined the life assurance industry the first lesson learned was that you can never save enough money to make a difference in the short term should anything happen, such as a critical illness, permanent disability or death.
 
The foundation of all planning must be protection. This was highlighted when a number of my own clients suffered critical illness claims within a few months of them taking out policies. All the claims were fulfilled and the prospect of financial insecurity, removed along with the associated stress, leaving them free to focus all their energies on recovery. These experiences convinced me of the importance of the financial adviser’s role in helping people achieve short term security.
 
Today there seems to be a reluctance for firms to discuss protection due in main to the perception that clients aren’t interested in life assurance and that the effort required to source and get cover “on risk”, does not merit the reward. The number of loans and mortgages now taken without none or minimal life cover in place is staggering and the threat to families if a disaster happens, profound. Despite this obvious reality, the protection gap is often estimated to be between £2-3 trillion, suggesting that the financial advice industry is not paying nearly enough attention to this vital form of planning.
 
I believe people are happy to discuss life cover and other protection when the reasons why are presented in the right way. The process of getting cover need not be as onerous as it once was thanks to new technologies that make researching and applying for cover easy. I am talking specifically about the recent launch of an integration between Time4Advice’s new back office system, CURO and Solution Builder. Not only can multi benefit quotes be obtained in seconds by referencing data held in CURO but also all the data and quotation documents can be captured back as recommendations in CURO so that comprehensive suitability reports can be generated automatically with little or no user involvement. 
 
Finding protection opportunities and managing these opportunities in bulk is also possible. The value from this targeted activity is obvious. Your clients get the protection they need, your advisers are fulfilling their professional responsibilities and the business will benefit from a solid uplift in profit.
 
We have created a video that showcases the process that you can watch by clicking HERE.

This article has been published in Issue 3 of iProtect which you can view in its full format HERE.

Please let me know what you think.