Last year, AMI Viewpoint featured a five point plan – a call to action to try and transform the protection sector and propel the industry forward. This was in response to trends identified from three years’ worth of consumer and adviser research.
One of AMI’s commitments was to work with its internal industry working group, L&G, Royal London and the wider industry to develop ideas on how we can collectively tackle the barriers highlighted in the Viewpoint reports.
As part of this, AMI ran an in-person protection workshop in April 2023 involving individuals from a selection of mortgage intermediary firms, L&G, Royal London, the Protection Distributors Group (PDG) and the Income Protection Task Force (IPTF).
Today AMI has published an ideas document, reflecting the outputs of the workshop. It includes suggestions that may be of interest to mortgage and protection intermediaries, insurers and technology providers and is available to all.
Stacy Penn, Senior Policy Adviser at AMI said:
“The Five Point Plan was a key part of last year’s protection Viewpoint and, nearly eight months on, we wanted to provide a progress update to the wider industry. The ideas document released today is one area of this work and is designed to spark new ways of thinking and generate discussion within firms.
AMI has a list of action points from the workshop and looks forward to working with other industry stakeholders to help shift the dial in the protection space.”
Julie Godley, Director of Intermediary at Legal & General Retail comments:
“Following the release of the Five Point Plan, we have continued to listen to our intermediary partners and coupled this with a willingness to take action to ensure we provide the best service, processes and solutions. Specifically, our customer experience and optimisation teams have researched specific pain points and this is driving change. As a result, we have updated the functionality of our systems, made cancellation on behalf of a customer easier and streamlined reinstatement processes. We also appreciate that this is a continuous conversation and have a dedicated mailbox for advisers to send us their ideas and feedback.
When it comes to supporting adviser confidence, we launched Partner First Service which provides dedicated teams for advisers to speak to about their new and existing business. We also have an extensive pre-sale underwriting proposition offering support for application enquiries to help provide advisers confidence around cases with, potentially complex medical disclosures.”
Jennifer Gilchrist, protection specialist at Royal London, comments:
“AMI’s Viewpoint report, The Great Protection Shift, is a great way of challenging the industry to continually seek ways to improve processes, adapt and showcase the industry in the best way possible.
The implementation of Consumer Duty will help to shift the dial by including protection as part of the holistic advice conversation – ultimately enhancing its profile. As part of that we’ll also see greater emphasis on often overlooked elements like writing policies in trust and the completion of beneficiary nomination forms, all of which will help increase confidence in the industry.
Since the publication of AMI’s Five Point Plan, we’ve continued to listen to advisers and provide support in areas that they said they would appreciate it most. One of those areas is understanding the power of claims statistics and case studies that bring to life what we strive to do on a day to day basis – supporting clients when they need it most. There is no better way of demonstrating the power of protection than by showcasing the benefits of what we do through real-life customer outcomes.”
Neil McCarthy, Chair at Protection Distributors Group (PDG) said:
“The PDG will be working with AMI on some of the key themes identified in their recent workshop, particularly regarding increasing the awareness of protection value to consumers and improving consumer outcomes and experiences in the claims and underwriting areas.”
Jo Miller, Co-Chair at Income Protection Task Force (IPTF) said:
“IPTF was delighted to be asked to attend AMI’s protection workshop. Great things happen when we see collaboration across the industry and it’s encouraging to see the alignment of values and focus from AMI, IPTF and PDG. With such a focus on improving consumer outcomes and getting more people the protection they need, we are certain that we will see positive results.”
