The use of technology by distributors and providers has boosted the protection market, according to Paul Yates.
Speaking to FTAdviser, the product strategy director at financial and insurance solutions provider iPipeline, said the term assurance market grew by 5 per cent and the income protection market by 10 per cent in 2016.
He explained a large amount of that growth “has been down to technology being implemented both by distributors and by providers to produce better products but also by a better advice process”.
“So, I can absolutely see that our customers are increasing their protection business by 30 per cent as soon as they put in new technologies,” he added.
“That’s had an enormous impact, they’re growing their business, they’re becoming far more efficient, and becoming more effective.”
Mr Yates suggested advisers could use technology to serve their clients by offering a better product mix.
“They can offer, not just term assurance but they can also offer them critical illness, show them the income protection and show the whole mix, show them modelling of how that would look for them,” he pointed out.
“But also we’re starting to really get into looking at the risks they have over a term with their mortgage, let’s say, and then be able to link that risk to the cost of covering it.”
In November this year, iPipeline added a risk and mortgage protection report to its SolutionBuilder system.
The report is designed to help advisers demonstrate the probable risks the client faces if they do not have adequate protection cover in place and what the cost is likely to be to ensure that they, and their families, are protected.
iPipeline surveyed more than 1,000 advisers in June this year and found 29 per cent of mortgages are sold without protection.
Asked which global technology developments are likely to have the biggest impact on the UK market, Mr Yates said in the field of engagement.
“How do you get customers to think about protection? Because it’s not something you wake up and think, 'I’m really going to get out and buy some protection today',” he acknowledged.
“And increasingly, younger people are more difficult to get hold of, they’re time constrained, they’re getting a barrage of information, and they’re often buying lots and lots of stuff.”
Watch the full interview at the top of the page.
eleanor.duncan@ft.com
