“We have also strived to ensure the amendment of information, including adding or removing benefits to maximise or achieve each client’s budget, has been made as simple as possible. All of the above can be done across a number of devices which means advisers are no longer tied to their desks and can provide this service wherever they are.”
LifeQuote was the first portal to offer multi-benefit quotes. It allows a matrix of up to 48 products to be shown, comparing single and multi-products and calculates the difference.
Neil McCarthy, LifeQuote sales and marketing director, said: “It’s all about saving advisers time and increasing their revenue, directly by simplifying the quotes so that they can get better quote research quicker, and indirectly by doing all their low cost admin, allowing them to focus on higher value tasks such as advising and seeing new clients.
“Also, helping with their compliance – by taking the non-disclosure risk (which at a point of a potential sale in the future should add value to their business), and by providing accurate information that aids and simplifies compliance audit.”
3. Get more policies on risk by setting expectations
One of the biggest reasons that protection policies aren’t taken up is that the premium comes back a lot more expensive than people were originally quoted at the start of the process due to an underwriting issue. So by setting realistic expectations from the outset, it helps the adviser with product recommendations and ensures there’s no nasty surprise for the client.
Peter Chadborn at advisory firm Plan Money said they have created their own pre-underwriting form for this reason, which covers brief questions on health, lifestyle and occupation ahead of the research process. “It means we understand very early on if there are any headline medical or occupational factors which may affect the application, thus enabling us to better manage clients’ expectations, and our own.”
Protection portal LifeQuote offers advisers a Decision in Principle pre-underwriting tool. “This is designed to enable advisers to source a medical, lifestyle, and in some cases, financial underwriting decision in principle from the provider or providers the adviser has pre-selected,” said Neil McCarthy, sales and marketing director.
“It allows advisers to create a carefully assembled and proven advice profile that will reassure the client, enhance conversion rates, reduce NTU and decline rates, and reduce the customer’s propensity to ‘multi-prop’, which in turn saves advisers time and wasted effort. It will also, usefully, give advisers additional hard evidence for why they have recommended a particular provider.”
