Following the launch of the first Consumer Duty Alliance (CDA) Protection Forum, facilitated by, Protection Guru, the multi award-winning technical information service and protection value comparison tool for advisers, the firms today reveals the polling from wealth advisers during the inaugural event. This shows alarming messages for insurers.
The survey of 112 wealth advisers who attended the forum to grow their knowledge and understanding of protection, found that over half (57%) would be more inclined to make protection part of their core proposition if they were able to demonstrate the need for protection to their clients. A further 21% said that finding the right resources to help them address protection needs would make them most inclined to do so. This evidences a failure on behalf of insurers across the protection market to effectively engage with wealth advisers and identifies a need for a fundamentally different approach.
The biggest blockers to engaging with protection named were a lack of necessary training or tools to help wealth advisers give protection advice and the complexity of arranging protection. Both were cited in equal measure by 43% of respondents, underlining the widespread need for the adoption of readily available resources, such as Protection Guru and Protection Guru Pro, to make the protection market more accessible to wealth advisers.
Since the introduction of Consumer Duty, the Protection market has anticipated significant growth in referrals to protection specialists, however the results of this poling indicate an overwhelming rejection of this approach with 92% of wealth advisers saying they would want to write protection themselves not refer it to specialists. However, if wealth advisers lack understanding of the need and value protection offers their clients and the products at their disposal, they will not recognise the poor consumer outcomes that can arise from a lack of protection insurance, impacting client outcomes.
The findings come as the focus on protection is increasing, both through The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Pure Protection Market Study and the launch of CDA Protection Forum, facilitated by Protection Guru, seeking to demystify protection advice for wealth firms with the aim to support advisers in defining the best strategies to protect their clients from financial vulnerability.
Ian McKenna, CEO and Founder of Protection Guru, a subsidiary of FTRC, calls on insurers to change their approach, commenting: “These findings demonstrate a clear case for engaging differently with wealth advisers. That may be an uncomfortable pill for some to swallow, but we now have the crucial evidence that the protection industry is failing to reach wealth advisers in the right way. It is time to rethink the approach to altogether.
“We frequently hear wealth advisers say their clients don’t need protection because they are wealthy, but the level of wealth is nothing like the level needed to have no protection need for cover. Every financial plan fails without an income. Taking income from investments to bridge a serious illness can have a significant impact on the level of savings achieved in later life.
“The need to provide objective impartial technical analysis of insurers products and shortcomings were major reasons why we set Protection Guru up six years ago and launched Protection Guru Pro in 2022, to provide advisers with the tools and knowledge to write protection across the full spectrum of products. We’re well-known in the specialist protection market and the findings highlight the importance of broadening our reach to the wealth adviser market and increasingly mortgages, in 2025 we will significantly extend our output to help wealth advisers as this is a major opportunity for the protection market to address this disconnect with many financial advisers.”
Protection Guru is the only service that allows advisers to look at quality and price to assess value across the full suite of protection products, covering life insurance, critical illness, income and business protection. This makes it the only system that meets the FCAs Consumer Duty requirement to assess protection based on value in a single service.
