Kathryn (00:05):

Hi everyone. We are on season eight, episode two, and today I have Rich Horn joining me from MetLife. Hi Rich.

Rich (00:12):

Hello everybody.

Kathryn (00:14):

Today we are going to be talking about, we’re just coming out of Income Protection Awareness Weeks. We’re going to be talking obviously about things like income protection, but all the other things that we can do as well to protect our clients just in case anything happens and we want to just make sure that they’re safe. This is the Practical Protection Podcast. So Mitch, how are you? I think you were just saying that you’ve been flying around everywhere across the UK this last week. I’m not saying flying necessarily, but maybe you have been

Rich (00:47):

Train on the LNER, which you probably know. Very well been. I do, been a yorkshireman and speaking to fellow Yorkshire folks. So yeah, I’ve been Brighton, London back to Doncaster, back down to London, and then back to Doncaster and picked up an award along the way, which was great.

Kathryn (01:04):

Very, very nice. What was the award?

Rich (01:06):

Tell me? It was the innovation award at the Money Facts Life Pensions

Kathryn (01:11):

And which is the innovation that we’re,

Rich (01:12):

The innovation was GP 24 because we put GP 24 onto all our policies for individual protection and employee benefits, but at no extra cost and to every single customer we had. So it wasn’t for new customers only, it was for all hundreds of thousands of things.

Kathryn (01:31):

Brilliant. That’s absolutely fantastic. Or well done. So you’ve had a nice, nice busy week then. Yeah,

Rich (01:37):

I’ve had a nice busy week. I was a little bit tired yesterday, so I’m glad that we’re recording this today.

Kathryn (01:42):

Absolutely. Well, let’s just start getting straight into everything. Okay. So obviously we’re just saying that income protection awareness week 23 has just happened. There’s been something happening every single day. What have been your key takeaways from this week?

Rich (01:58):

I think there’s been some really good stuff out there, and I think if people aren’t looking at it on LinkedIn and the IPTF website do have a look. I think this morning there’s things going on now, but they were talking about how to increase brand and grow your business talking about objection handling underwriting. It was day two. That was the key one for me, which was about conversations around income protection. I’m aging myself here, but it made me think about Bob Hoskins on the old British Gas adverts. It’s good to talk. Oh yeah, absolutely. And that for me, that’s the best bit about IPTF. It’s starting this conversation about a product that is so important and I think for insurers we need to talk about it to then remind our distribution partners we totally rely on to get the product out to the customer to then mention it to their customers.

(02:52):

If we don’t talk to the customers about it, the chances are they’re not thinking about it. But given the world we’re living in at the moment, I think income protection is so important and we’ve seen some great growth in the market. The figures are showing that, but at the same time, I look at those growth numbers and think, wow, they could be so much better and bigger if we were having more conversations. One of the takeaways for me actually, and I’d suggest looking this up, there’s a one pager that IPTF put together called the Case for Income Protection and it’s got some stats and figures around income protection that we can share with customers, and it was saying that the percentage of population with IP in 2022 was 6.1%, which is it’s just not good enough, it’s not enough. I know, absolutely

Kathryn (03:45):

Not. I think did that one have the one on it as well where it was something like 13 for every 13 people who’s able to work, one person is on long-term sick, so it’s one in 13 basically, which is, that’s quite a stat as well to say that that’s a company, even a small company that’s one person in a small company who’s going to be on long-term sick. It’s quite intense.

Rich (04:11):

It’s really intense and I think when you look at that as well, that’s potentially long-term work absences, and then when you think about income protection, it can have so much support to get people back to work and fiscally it could just help the whole uk. So it’s not just the benefit of paying that when someone’s off work, it can help them get back to work and convalesce and be well again and be able to contribute as people want to do. She’s brilliant.

Kathryn (04:40):

Absolutely. I was going to say, in terms of the conversations you were saying about that, from an advisor point of view, it can be quite tricky. So I mean sometimes I’d say I sometimes get frustrated on social media when I see people saying, if you are a good advisor, every person you speak to is going to walk away with life insurance, critical illness. And really some people are really going for it and it’s saying you’re not a good advisor if they don’t walk away with this. All of my clients have this. And I sometimes think from an advisor’s point of view that that can be quite negative obviously for other advisors. But also it’s just a case of, but not everyone will. And I think a really key thing for me is when we’re talking about things like this is that for quite a lot of people, depending upon the type of advisor they’re speaking to, they’re going to have a certain amount of assets or they’re going to have a certain amount of income coming in.

(05:30):

And I always find it really interesting when we’re looking at income levels, you can often look at people who’ve got significant income coming in and you can think, oh, they won’t mind paying this. And they’re like, I’m not paying that, but you think I’m made of money. And you’re just kind of like, well, you’ve got quite a nice income actually. So I would’ve thought it would’ve been okay. And then you can get other people who’d be seen on the low end of this salary scale who will take absolutely everything and really push themselves. So I don’t think there’s really a certain, at the moment I’ve not figured out in a sense the client that is absolutely regardless of their income levels or what makes someone go, yes, I’ll definitely have that. And I do think it comes down to lots of things like education. I think it’s the way that we’re brought up how we’re exposed to finance from a younger and everything.

(06:13):

And I think for a lot of advisors, the starting point is when you’re having these conversations is it’s to just change the mindset. So as an example in my company Cure, let’s talk about trusts. Just going off on a bit of a tangent away from Income Protect for a minute, but with trusts, the mindset that we have in our companies that trusts are happening, it’s not an add-on it’s we’re following it up, it is happening and there needs to be a very good reason if someone isn’t going to do a trust. And obviously it’s so easy to do them online now with so many insurers, it’s the case of, well, why wouldn’t you just do that? It’s literally an extra page when you do an application. So it’s changing that. It’s bringing in some of that conversation in earlier. And I think that comes down to as well, the income protection thing, it’s often not what people go for.

(06:59):

The majority of people when they’re chatting immediately think things like life insurance because it’s what we tend to have heard of. It’s tend to have been our parents have had it. And with a mortgage, when you get grown up, you have to have life insurance, but income protection obviously as we know is so, so important and it should be brought in. So when I generally chat to people, whatever they’ve come to me for, I’ll then be saying, okay, I’m also going to be looking at this. And I think sometimes advisors can get a little bit stuck if someone goes, but I don’t want that. Or, well, that’s, I’m not interested. It’s outside my budget. And I think it’s a case of we know in the industry that people are thinking of protection is going to be a lot more expensive than it is usually for a lot of people.

(07:40):

And I think that thing, again, a bit like for me, my mindset of the trust of a trust is happening. If so, what’s about it? It is going to happen. I, it’s kind the same for me with ips. If someone says to me, no, I don’t want it, and it’s a case of okay, but it’s my job as an advisor, I’m at least going to look at it and I’m at least going to tell you kind of what that pricing is because that’s really important. And going up against tangent, consumer duty, all of that side of things, we’re going to really want to do that. I mean obviously that are always exceptions is say if you’ve got someone and they’ve got a 20 pound a month budget and they really need life insurance to protect the family, the children against a mortgage and everything like that, it might well be that you use the majority of the budget towards the life insurance and there might not be stuff left over for income protection, but there are so many different ways of setting it up, isn’t there?

(08:31):

I know with MetLife, I know obviously you’ve got your mortgage safe option and I think at the very very least, and this is a really key thing, if somebody has a mortgage, at the very least you want to be covering that mortgage, something that’s going to be coming out, potentially some associated expenses and things like that. And I think sometimes advisors can struggle that, but what’s your thought after you do have that product there? So when you’re positioning that and you’re chatting to advisors about it, what are you guys saying or how do we get that conversation if someone’s really new or they just do mortgage advice but they’re trying really hard to do right by their client, they’re wanting to bring in that IP conversation, how should we be opening those conversations?

Rich (09:12):

I think something you said there is key for me where I’ve worked with advisors who’ve successfully helped their customers. We talk about signposting in lots of different ways in the industry, but that signposting at the start of a conversation works well. Today we are going to talk about your life insurance, but I’m also going to talk about income protection as well because I think it is important, it’s just building the ultimate for me is kind of offering all the options or at least considering all the options for the customer back way back when might’ve had a little bit more hair. I worked in pensions, I worked in pensions particularly at retirement pre and post-retirement. And at a time when 90% plus people took an annuity and pensions freedom came out and it opened up all these options for people and they started considering it. And I do think in a way consumer duty might well just prompt us all to start thinking, hang on, what consumer duty is.

(10:14):

Really what it boils down to for me is making sure the right people get the right products. So when you do that fact find, when you really listen and understand what the needs and the wants of the customer is, that’s when we can start having a conversation about a broad range of products. I always think about it like building a protection portfolio, and this probably takes me back to my old wealth management days where you talk about a diversified portfolio is one that covers all the risks you’ve got. So you’ll have equities in there, you’ll have fixed interest, cash property so that depending on what’s going on in the world, you’re always covered. You can always get some growth somewhere. And that’s where ideal where some people might say, I always do this and I’m always a little bit if people talk, I don’t like absolutes, I don’t like absolutes either.

(11:01):

So it makes me slightly too itchy. But if you are considering say, well let me build a portfolio that’s got some life, got some income protection, has some critical illness, maybe some of the differentiated products that MetLife offer other providers as well. That’s good. And I think what you say is it’s totally right on income protection. I think if we don’t talk about it, I think the perception of customers will be, it’s really expensive, I can’t afford it. But the importance of it is it’s great. And with shorter term payment periods, one, two year payments coming in, we know it can be quite affordable. And the old adage is a stitching time saves nine and if you can just put in place a little bit, it can save an awful lot in the future where people are off work for even that three to six to nine months where people don’t have savings. And I think that’s one of the average credit card debt 2,315, that was only the case for income protection. People can drop into debt quite quickly. So talking about it is a good thing.

Kathryn (12:08):

Absolutely. And I think the last time I checked as well is that I think it’s important as an advisor to have some of that information to hand really those important bits of figures and things. So again, when I’m doing my training and things like that, I will say to people, obviously statutory sick pay, a lot of people go, I’m fine statutory sick pay, but it’s around about 2,800 pounds to live off for six and a half months. It’s incredibly small that people are not going to be able to live off that. I remember saying a little bit back about the consumer duty side of things as well. It is all about saying let’s try and make sure we do this. But when I come into things, because obviously I tend to obviously compliance where I am as well and I’m completely, obviously I’m not completely different between my advisor head and my compliance head, but obviously compliance head Kathryn is a little bit boom, it does work absolutely sometimes, but what I’m always looking for as well, and I think it’s important for advisors to think about this when they’re doing things and if they’re not doing things like IP is, why haven’t you done it?

(13:04):

And I think that’s really key because it’s really, we all talk about, well I’ve done this and I’ve done that and tooting our own horns in a sense, but we don’t often go, but I haven’t done this. Or we can be scared to say it have I’ve not done a good enough job. And it’s kind of like, well if we’ve not done it and that’s making us feel a bit, then that probably means we should be looking at it. And if there is ever a complaint, if someone’s coming in and looking what you’re doing, they’re going to look at what you’ve done, but they are really going to focus upon what you’ve not done. And you need to be able to answer those questions of, well why didn’t, if I’m a mortgage advisor and I’m setting up a mortgage, why haven’t I done income protection?

(13:39):

What was the reason? Is it because I didn’t, it wasn’t my thing, I just don’t really do that side, it makes me uncomfortable. I’m too busy and the person didn’t want it. Well, there’s different answers to all of those. There’s signpost to protection specialists or it could be that you have recommended it and the person hasn’t wanted it. And I always say to people, don’t be afraid to put that in your reports to people as well and say, we’ve done this, we’ve arranged this for you and also I did also recommend this, but you’ve decided it’s not right for you at this time. There’s nothing wrong with doing that either. But like you’re saying there as well, there’s so many ways to build it up when we’re talking about the expense of it. I mean that’s one thing I love about income protection. There’s a really interesting piece went out recently, Kevin Carr put one out about complexity in insurance. We always say it’s too complex, but do we want it to be less complex? And I think on income protection, very much so we don’t want it to be less complex from a advice point of view because like you say, all those options, one year claim, two year, five year full term and then the way that we can just build it is it can be molded so much to suit people.

Rich (14:46):

Yeah, I agree with that and I think complex is the right way to look at it so you can build it. We should still be striving to make it easy to understand, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be complex and that you can take parts of it and build it for the customer, what people like you do. You’re the experts in listening to people thinking really going deep and I know you and all the folk at Keira do this really and really understanding what the needs and wants are and then building the right solution for the customer.

Kathryn (15:21):

Absolutely. Well obviously, hopefully, fingers crossed, that’s what all advisors are doing, not just as secure. Got a good amount doing that. So when we’re talking about income protection and things like that, we do see a lot of extra add-ons now these add-ons sometimes come with, so obviously quite a lot of income protection policies now can add on things like fracture cover and things like that. And I know obviously with MetLife you do have your everyday protects where you see things like the fracture cover and have it as built into the everyday protects as part of that product feature. And it can be quite hard sometimes as an advisor to sort of know, well how important is it add? If it was an IP policy with a different IUR sales or I’m adding on fracture cover, how important is it that extra little bit of money, how can I convince someone to take it out? But I know obviously you guys especially you’re bound to have lots of stats there to show just how important it’s to have something like a fracture cover and things like that.

Rich (16:19):

And we paid in 2022 over 19,000 claims at MetLife alone, a lot of those on fractures, a lot for hospitalization, for sickness and what our products actually are. Well they’re designed to be complimentary to the other products in the market. So it’s not trying to replace life kick or income protection, it’s almost like a standalone how we build our products. Something I have seen with value added services generally though, and I think this is something we really think hard about is making sure that when we’re building a product it’s really, it’s clear in the marketing material who the product is for. We know with Everyday Protect it’s for families, self-employed blue collar workers, people with active lifestyles, we hammered that home. There is not one product that can be right for everyone. I think something I’ve seen with value added services in the last few years, which I think is a good thing, it felt like when they started coming into the market there was just a race to have the longest list of value added services and that was right for the customer.

(17:31):

But actually I think you can’t see the wood for the trees at that point. I dunno if you’ve heard it. There’s a thing called paradox of choice. You give people too much choice and they make no choice at all. There’s something I talk about, there’ll be some of my team folk who’ve worked with me have listened to, it’s going on about jam again because I used this jam, I’ve used this analogy. So I’ve talked about it so much. I thought it was going to be one of those stories where when I looked into it, it wasn’t true and it’s just insight. But I found the report, it was done at Washington University, but it was basically an exact experiment where they went and said how much can we increase our sales of jam? So what they did in one supermarket they put 24 choices of jam, which attracted 60% of the shoppers who came in in the same supermarket a few weeks later they put six choices of the jam, which only attracted 40% of the shoppers.

(18:32):

So actually by having more jam you attracted more people for both of them. Shoppers sampled two of the jams, so you get the same sample rate where you got 24 choices of jam though only 3% of shoppers bought the jam where you gave people six choices of jam, 30% of the shoppers buy the jam because they can find and hone in on something that’s important to them that they like. And I think what’s happened with value added services for me is we’ve got better as an industry packaging them and I’ve, because I do my research, I have a look at what the other insurers are doing and I think when you go on the website, it’s now clear why this value added service is there, who it’s for. And that for me that’s critical. And again, we go back to consumer duty, right product for the right customer. If you put in a value added service on there, there is a cost to that to the customer somewhere. We’ve just got to make sure that it’s getting used. So tracking the usage rates and things like that is really important.

Kathryn (19:32):

Yeah, definitely. And just a little thing again for advisors because I think there’s a mix between advisors who sometimes will use the value added benefits to help promote a certain product and then some who don’t take it consider it too much. So as an example, a cure, obviously we’re known for helping people who have risks that mean that it’s not always the simplest of things to get insurance for them. So when we are looking at insurers, it’s not often a case of that we have a choice of 20 or so for us to look at. I mean we have about 35 insurers that we’re using across the markets in the UK and international, but it’ll end up with each client that we’ve maybe got two or three that maybe stand out or maybe sometimes it is just one. So for us as a company, the value add doesn’t always end up being like the selling points, but I know for some firms obviously it can really help them to say you need to, we really think this one and I think they’re absolutely fantastic, the value add, but I just always like to reiterate to advisors, make sure that you are very clear that they are, if you are putting them in your recommendation reports, say everything on here is completely contractual with the exception of the value added benefits.

(20:44):

Just make sure that you are being super, super careful about it and I know cause you were saying then as well about families and everything as well, just scooting back. So I know that obviously power with the everyday protect side of things, you do have children’s covering there as well. And it’s really interesting because we have children’s cover but not really in the IP space but in the critical illness space. And that’s again so different. Well I say so different. It’s quite different to what you would be offering in terms of the everyday protect side of things, but I imagine that’s where, especially unlike those fracture covers does that 19,000 claims of last year, I imagine that a huge amount of that is children with their fractures. I know my son broke his collarbone doing a handstand earlier this year, which was interesting and certainly it’s certainly something that I’m assuming you see lots and lots of.

Rich (21:41):

Yeah, it is something I watched from where I’m sitting now. I saw my daughter do a cartwheel in roller blades the other day and I just thought, oh, there’s a claim waiting to happen. So I’ve asked her to stop that. But yeah, we definitely do see it. We actually see it on the value added service as well to a certain extent with gp. But last year we paid 5,176 claims for kids. So that was for accidents and for the illnesses. So hospitalization which, and a lot of the time they are linked together and already and it was only this year where we’ve launched GP 24 to our customers of the prescriptions we’re seeing coming from that 17% for the kids. And that’s not a specific children’s product, it’s a product that where you can add kids on. So we know that that is a driver about 50% of the everyday protect policies we see go out of the doors, have got the child cover add-on on there.

Kathryn (22:45):

Wow. I was going to say I think if you do it, it’s pretty much a given that you’re going to want to be doing that there. So if we’ve got like 5,000 claims, what we’re looking at, 13, 14 claims a day.

Rich (22:58):

Yep. If you do it on 365 days a year, the team at MetLife are committed, but they don’t work 365 days a year. It’s just over 14 claims a day for kids. Wow.

Kathryn (23:09):

I mean that’s a huge, huge amount of children that are breaking bones and doing different things like that. That’s quite scary. And I think you even covered things. Is it like the greenstick fractures and stuff like that, isn’t it where it’s just like if it’s a fracture, it’s a fracture, am I right? Yep,

Rich (23:24):

Totally right. The one we don’t cover is for people like me who like running, which is a stress fracture because that’s just an overuse injury for idiots who don’t want to stop going out for a room when their leg hurts. So we don’t cover that. The definition is not an accident and then the only bone inverted that we don’t cover is the nose and that’s because it’s cartilage, but every other bone in the body is covered in one way or another.

Kathryn (23:54):

Interesting. And I think I have to say, I think it’s because I remember quizzing you about this years ago, but I’ve first met you, so I apologize for quizzing you about the start, but obviously as I always say, I’ve got hyper mobility syndrome, so my body is naturally potentially more likely to break than someone who doesn’t have it. And I think it’s important for advisors to be really clear with people as to what that means. So for somebody like myself, I remember was having this conversation and hopefully I’ve definitely not forgotten it, I’ll said it wrong, but it was a case if I just happen to be in a situation where I break bone, and it happens to be because of the hyper mobility in a sense because it’s a preexisting condition exclusion with quite a lot of times with these things that wouldn’t be covered.

(24:36):

But I think I use the example of you saying if I’m stood at the top of the stairs and one of my kids has left a toy and I accidentally stand on it, fall down all the stairs and break my leg and it’s completely feasible that someone else would’ve broken their leg in that situation that you do cover, stuff like that. So we do take it into account the preexisting things, and I’m going to do a little side thing as well with this. I know I’m moving away from my peer a bit again, but I’ve had it before and this is again just a bit of advisor insight is that I’ve had it before with people with medical conditions, so I’ve maybe suggested the policy, but in sense maybe their condition would be more likely to lead them to develop blindness at some point. And I’ve ended up having a 30 minute conversation where we’ve just gone around and around and around of me saying, if you become accidentally blind, it’ll pay. And them saying, but I might be compliant because of my conditions, would it pay out for that? And me going, no, if you become accidentally blind, and obviously it doesn’t just go like that in repeat for 30 minutes, but it’s really important as an advisor to really stick to what and not be led to say what somebody wants you to say because I think that you can sometimes get drawn into that a little bit

Rich (25:43):

Sometimes as an advisor. Totally, totally. But you are right by the way. So yeah, if it’s down to the condition, it wouldn’t be, but if it meets the definition of an accident, so if you were outside doing cartwheels and you roll the blades and you broke a bone, you’ll be absolutely fine. But I would recommend you don’t do that.

Kathryn (26:00):

Oh, I’m not doing that. Trust me, I’m certainly not going to be doing that. I am bad enough on normal shoes, let alone, let alone on my other skates and saying well away from that side of things. So obviously, I mean I know we’ve just chatted, we’ve gone through loads there, so we’ve gone through income protection, why we think it’s so important, obviously the fact that we can really build it and make it different, bringing in what we’ve said obviously from IPTF week, which is all the thing of have the conversation, build it, how we need to look at all the different options in terms of with all of these things. So at the moment we’re talking in our industry life insurance, critical illness cover, income protection, and then we have things like Everyday Protect and the new product that we’ll chat about in a minute that mostly MetLife have bought out as well.

(26:43):

And then we have dental cash plans and then we have over fifties and we have private medical insurance and all that kind of thing. Now I know obviously you are going to see lots and lots in terms of MetLife and what people are wanting. And I know you’ve said obviously though that you’ve had other past experience and that in the industry and pensions and things. But when it comes down to it and when you’re, you’re about to do consumer research and things like that to build the products and everything, what is it that people really want? What is it that people are worried about?

Rich (27:11):

I was listening to this podcast a week or so ago, it was the In Protection Awareness podcast and something you said really struck me on this actually where, and I don’t think many people will do this, but you were explaining that if you can’t get someone covered for a condition, you will ask the insurer. So when can they get cover? So I can go back to that, which I think is an absolutely amazing idea by the way. And I think if everyone did that, it’s brilliant for the customer, it’s brilliant for you as a business because there’s a future customer. But I think that when we’ve done our research, that’s one of the things customers want. They want products and advice that stays with them and develops with them through life. The panacea that always gets talked about is, oh, I’d love a product that did this in my twenties, that in my thirties, this in my forties, something that develops and we don’t yet have that product, but that’s what people are looking for is that consistency of support from someone who can continue to update the fact find, update their understanding of them so that they can change and adapt with them.

(28:20):

And I think that it was what you said that really prompted that into my mind to think, yeah, that’s good, that’s great advice that you’re speaking to someone you’ve been considerate and you could staying in touch. And that’s always come out in the research. And then recently the research has been, and we’ve just talked about this, it’s the kids, people really want to protect their kids. They worry about their kids almost more than they worry about themselves. You may have seen we’ve had press releases go out this week about actually how much, what we’ve seen from that. And some of the percentages are they’re as high as you would expect, 92% of parents are concerned about their kids having accidents. I mean, I dunno what the other 8% are worried about, but whenever we’ve done something with the children’s products and we have the add-on on our products, we’ve got a standalone product now. That’s where you can see it really because eyes light up. I’ve been privileged enough to sit in the research. So you sit in a darkened room behind what’s a mirror for the people there, but we can see it and the minute, what are your worries, what are you concerned about? And kids come up, that’s when the folk tend to get animated and that’s what they’re really about.

Kathryn (29:42):

Yeah, definitely. And I think that probably fits really nicely actually to talk about the most recent thing that has been launched by MetLife. So do you mind just letting everybody know about that,

Rich (29:55):

The products? Well the one thing I will say about we’ve built it with advisors, we realize, I always think about there’s three parties generally involved. I know that customers can go and buy products direct, but in the UK there is generally an insurer, an intermediary and a customer all working together. So you you’ve got to satisfy all three people in that triangle. So what we did with this new product, which is called child shield, speak to a lot of our advisor partners and say, right, we are building something, we’re thinking there’s something here, what does it need to look like? And we went out and spoke to customers, we did the research with them. Actually the research firm we used gave us feedback that actually the propensity to buy or want the products compared to other insurer products was great. And what we’ve come up with I think we think it’s the first of its kind in a way is a standalone product that protects children. So very affordable. So either six pound or 11 pounds. That was really important for us. It had to be something that could fit into that protection portfolio into the existing advice process without breaking budgets. What we’re covering with it is broken bones, accidents, hospitalization for accidents, accidents for sickness, and then some serious childhood related illnesses. So a cancer diagnosis and things like that. Meningitis. So it’s the product that as a parent, the things you tend to worry about,

Kathryn (31:41):

The main things that sort extent. I mean obviously things like cancer and stuff like that are always a worry. I mean I try and behave myself. I am a worrier. It is just part of my nature. And obviously having three kids, it’s I’m constantly thinking on my word, what’s going to happen next constantly about them. And you don’t want to think about these things. But I think what’s nice about the products as well is that let’s say somebody is an adult is taking out some insurance and they can’t afford things like Chris Pen. And I’m not saying this is an either or situation. Obviously yours absolutely stands in it, but I’m just thinking from an advice point of view when you’re wanting to do stuff, you’re speaking to a client, they maybe can’t get full critical illness cover for their mortgage or maybe they can’t get critical illness cover at all.

(32:24):

Maybe there was a situation where they just cannot get it for some reason. Then something like this, it gives people the opportunity to protect their children completely independent of themselves before. Now obviously the insurances has been, even if there are a couple of insurers where we can do life insurance with a children’s bolt on of some children’s critical illness cover it still dependent upon the adult. Whereas now this is just, we’ve just taken the payments out of it obviously in many ways except for payments and stuff like that. And this is just purely focused on making sure that looking after kids, which like you say, I don’t think there is anything like that at the moment.

Rich (33:03):

And it is the parent, it’s the guardian’s policy, but there is no underwriting on there. So you’re totally right in what you say that if you want to protect the kids, you can still come and get this as long as you’re the right age, they’re the right age. But it goes from birthright up to the age of 23, you can get the cover. It does have value added services as well, by the way. So GP 24, it’s got a helpline on there for mental health support, all sorts of financial support as well.

Kathryn (33:31):

I was going to say that’s really important, the mental health support, I think that’s a really key worry for a lot of parents as well. And you do tend to find with quite a lot of mental health support services that they won’t cover children. So to have that in there was really good. And I think as well, if I remember rightly that there was potentially some support, and I know this is going quite deep and obviously we really don’t want to necessarily think about this, but there is some stuff about if children are very, very poorly mental health wise, they may be starting to maybe take some actions that would be quite negative that there is that inbuilt support there, which is just not offered anywhere else because with other mental health support services, I know from experiences of knowing quite a few people trying to engage with them that as soon as it becomes something that’s more than just general, I’m feeling a bit down, can I have a bit of talking therapy that the wall’s just completely shut and they just don’t offer support. So to have that for children and with the difficulty in getting that support through usual boots just because of NHS resources and stuff like that, that is actually really, really stand out.

Rich (34:37):

Yeah, no, we’re very pleased. It’s early days. We’re trying to do things a little bit differently to help our advisors grow their business and ultimately the market grow and pay more claims, make sure customers at the time of need have got something that they require. So we’re very early days as I say, but we’re pretty excited about the product and it’s brilliant to feel like we’re doing something different. This is an idea I’ve been talking about for years, so I actually feel a bit like the parent who’s just your baby giving birth to this child.

Kathryn (35:13):

Oh, fantastic. And I have to say as well, so this was something I chatted to you about it just before I started recording and it was something that I looked into. I was going to say, I’ve always said this, I’ve been raised by police officers, so I also tend to go to quite dark places. And in my mind when this came out, I was going to say there was that part of me that suddenly thought, but what about kids that aren’t safe because obviously talk about broken bones and things like that. And I thought, oh no, it’s just me. But then a couple of my teams said, has anybody checked this? And what I was so pleased about, and I have to say absolute hats off to MetLife because I don’t know if every firm would’ve thought of this. And I just think it’s an incredibly important thing and it’s really, it makes you start thinking good firm kind of thing, is that there are specific statements in the documents that say that there might need to be potentially declarations or sometimes checks if there is a suspicion that the broken bones or things like that have been inflicted rather than it being due to an accident.

(36:18):

And that was immediately for me, the fact that you’ve got safeguarding in there, it’s in the wording couple of places. I think that’s really, really stands out as something that’s important. So definitely hats off to you guys.

Rich (36:30):

Thank you. And I think it’s worth just shouting out the claims team as well. Part of that is our claims team, so we paid last year over 19,000 claims. And they’re not all as complex, sorry, they’re not all as simple as a life claim where we know that don’t really need to know the cause. We know exactly what’s happened. Ours can come from anywhere, fractures, illness, loss of limbs. So they have to go into quite a lot of detail on each claim and really get an understanding. So they’re very skilled at talking to customers and spotting things if there’s an issue, but also supporting where needed. So they’re a brilliant bunch.

Kathryn (37:13):

Well that’s fantastic. I was going to say, and I have my fingers crossed that there won’t be any of those situations, but again, from probably an advisor point of view, it could just be making sure that you’re just clear with people in a sense as certainly as possible that these policies aren’t designed for that kind of a situation and then hopefully kind of ward off anything like that that could potentially happen. So I was going to say we’re towards the end of the podcast there, rich, is there anything that you would like to leave us with thoughts wise in terms of income protection or anything else that we discussed?

Rich (37:46):

Yeah, I think thinking back on the conversation, which is great by the way, it’s just nice to sit and talk sometimes, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s like I say, it’s good to talk. The main thing for me, we are, I always say to my team, there is no one product that is right for every customer. It’s impossible. But we should take into account all the products for every customer. So if we as an industry can start to understand what the options are, thinking about starting with the customer and listening and hearing what they say, here’s my worries, here are the risks that I feel present me every day and then discuss the appropriate products and signpost it early to say, well, I think because of what you said I’d love to discuss with you today, life Income protection and MetLife, everyday Protect.

(38:35):

That’s a great place to be. And I think we’ll continue to grow the market from income protection because it’s brilliant to see those stats, but there is so many more people out there who don’t have the products and similar products that can protect against everyday occurrences. Not the really big things like life and Kick, but these short term or potentially short term three to six months off work, which we know can have huge impacts on people’s lives. So let’s continue to have the conversations, signpost earlier, they’re going to have them and consider the options, all the options that could be appropriate for the customer.

Kathryn (39:13):

Absolutely. And I was going to say, because I know we mentioned obviously MetLife, the FA Protect, lots of people know where to come to soft, right? Look at that. In terms of the child shield though, that’s just currently with a certain number of firms, isn’t it? Is it 10 firms that can currently do that? 10

Rich (39:26):

Firms? Yeah. So if

Kathryn (39:27):

You see a need period, if it’s something your client’s interested in, it’s a good idea to reach out to one of the firms that can do it. And obviously like we’re saying signposting, things like that. And just again, it’s that thing of just having those conversations and making sure we’re making everyone aware of all the different aspects of what we can do for them.

Rich (39:47):

And we will be over time we’ll be starting to make sure it’s available via more outlets, but it’s a new product. We’re very pleased with how it’s going so far. So keep an eye on what’s going on with Charles Shields. We’re excited.

Kathryn (39:59):

Brilliant. Fantastic. Well thank you so much for joining me, rich, and thank you everyone for listening. Next time we’re going to be back with Matt Van. It’s first time back in season eight, and we’re going to be talking about getting insurance for expats and why it isn’t always as simple to ensure people outside of the uk. If you’d like a CPD certificate, please visit our website, practical hy protection.co uk because you can get your CPD certificate there. Thanks to our sponsors, the Okta members. So thank you again, rich. Bye.

Rich (40:26):

Thanks, bye.