The PPP - AMI Protection Viewpoint

AMI Protection Viewpoint

The Practical Protection Podcast is back, this time with the second inbetweenysode of this season. Kathryn is joined by Senior Policy Adviser, Stacy Penn from AMI (Association of Mortgage Intermediaries). They’re talking about AMI’s recent report, all about mortgages and protection.

Stacy has an insurance background, and when a role became available at AMI she felt like it would be a natural fit. AMI is a regulating and lobbying body, representing intermediary firms. AMI Viewpoint is consumer and adviser research involving 3,000 UK adults and 254 IFA’s and mortgage advisers. This report has just recently been published, and it highlights a number of things. 

The FCA’s Consumer Duty Principle plays a role in this. Stacy mentions that having the consumer duty principle in place should mean that we are all empowering customers to make decisions that are in their best interest. There is emphasis on certain things such as making sure you’re communicating in the right ways and ensuring that your client has all of the information they need to make an informed decision. For mortgage companies, it could mean that this instigates more conversations about income protection, to go alongside any existing conversations about life insurance and critical illness cover.

Some people already try to keep on top of the market and put themselves in their customers shoes to make sure that they’re providing the best possible service, and these people might not have to change much of their existing practices. There are others who might need that bit of encouragement, which is where the Consumer Duty Principle can kick in.

The viewpoint report shows a great deal of things, but one of them being that a third of people aged 18-34 years old said that they don’t have protection insurance in place because they think that they’re too young for it. Which is quite interesting, because this is usually when you would see the best possible terms. What more can be done to ensure that people really do have the right perception of protection insurance?

Over recent years, there’s definitely been an increase in advisers and those alike taking to social media to get the message out there, but the industry as a whole still has a long way to go.

Another thing to bring to the attention of potential customers is the motivation behind recommending protection insurance policies. Stacy shares with us that the report found 50% of people thought their adviser recommended protection insurance for the commission that they would receive, rather than to do best by the customer. From this Kathryn and Stacy talk about the importance of bringing protection insurance conversations right into the start of discussions, and not as an add-on at the end when people could feel that they’re being sold extras.

You can listen to the episode in full below, or on the Practical Protection Podcast website.

Check out the Practical Protection Podcast website to listen to more episodes.

Remember, if you have listened to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on the website, thanks to the podcasts sponsors Octo Members.

If you would like to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at Kathryn’s Protection Insurance in Practice course.

Related blogs

The Practical Protection Podcast – Trusts

The Practical Protection Podcast – High Cholesterol

The Practical Protection Podcast – Consumer Duty