Kathryn:

Hi everybody. We are having the tables turned on us for the first episode of season seven. We have settle met with us from the opener partnership and he’s gonna be taking over as the host. Enjoy.

Setul:

Hi everyone. Hi Roy. Hi Catherine. Hi. So today we’re going to be able to hear firsthand from both of you my two favorite Practical Protection Podcast heroes, and even far if he’s around, but I can’t see him. So let’s, let’s assume he is not distracting us for the moment. And as a longtime fan of the series, I’ve seen both of you brought to guests firsthand, and actually sometimes I get the feeling like you might wanna answer yourself. So this is the opportunity for me to turn the tables as you say, and ask you both, and for everyone to hear your answers directly. This is the Practical Protection Podcast. So Kathryn, think back February, 2020, while lots was going on in the world at that time, you launched episode one. Do you remember what it was about? Do you have any memories from it?

Kathryn:

Absolutely. So, um, the podcast had come together. It was me and Andrew Wibbley had sat down together. Um, for everybody remembers, Andrew did the first season with me. He’s a consultant underwriter and we’d met up before, obviously lockdown and everything like that. I think it was probably about the October, November the year previously. And we just both, sorry, said, you know, wouldn’t it be really random if we did something, I don’t know, like podcast where there was like, the two sides of the industry actually came together for everyone to see it was gonna be the advisor world, it was gonna be an underwriter just talking openly about the challenges that are faced, um, without going into sort of like naming this insurer does this or this does that or, or anything like that. And we did the first one on epilepsy and, um, we just thought, you know, let’s take something that people are often, advisors especially are gonna come across quite often at times, but still not something that’s everybody sees regularly.

Kathryn:

Because most of the advisors will probably have some kind of an inkling of things like mental health or maybe even diabetes, even though I say a lot of advisors, maybe not all, um, as we’ll see as we probably go along. Um, and we’re just, let’s just take something and give some information out there. And the beauty of something like epilepsy as well, when you’re looking at it from an underwriting point of view and advice point of view, is that as soon as you’re talking about something like that, in, in many ways, you are automatically giving out the offshoots for other neurological conditions. So it’s giving people insights straight away to a much broader area without them necessarily realizing it. And, um, and it was lots of fun, very, very exciting. Had no idea how it was gonna be, um, taken by the industry. Um, you know, had no idea what Andrew would face in terms of being so open as an underwriter out in the industry. And obviously I can’t speak for him or anything, but, um, but yeah, it was, it was fun, it was exciting and, um, and I think, I think it’s been quite worthwhile.

Setul:

I I would definitely agree actually. And I think, think about that very va I was looking at, I was listening to the one about organ donations, right? Again, another topic that isn’t really the, in fact, probably the first time I’ve heard anybody talk about organ donations within this environment. So you’ve definitely carried on many, many seasons on, um, Roy o over to you think back, right? You probably started sort of a year on or two seasons on. What have been your favorite memories?

Roy:

Um, I just think the whole openness of it. Um, you know, and, and this is also me listening to, to people, you know, coming up to you at the conferences and, and various dues and, and just, you know, luckily, so they’ve really enjoyed it. I think that the fact that we can be so open, I don’t think there’s been one tooo subject. I don’t think we’ve ever said no ka we, we really shouldn’t say that. I think Catherine and I both have the ability to, you know, to, to challenge our guess and, and not be too political, if that makes sense. As in, you know, re really bringing issues to the fore. Because I think as, as day-to-day advisors, what I’m guessing people, uh, have enjoyed is the fact that we can ask questions that hopefully everybody else is asking and just wants people to, you know, to, to hear from.

Roy:

So the, the, that’s, that was the overriding thing. I mean, at the start you, you were a little bit nervous cause it’s, it’s hard talking to your peers. I mean, I remember one of the first episodes was talking to, uh, to Monty, uh, from, um, the Mortgage world. And uh, and obviously I think one of the things we’ve hopefully done during this P period is, is, is opened up chats with the mortgage world and the wealth world. Um, but, but sometimes they, they are completely different worlds as, as you all know, from, from, from, from open work. And I think pulling those strands together and seeing the synergies, um, and crossovers, um, and working out that, do you know what, we’re all on the same side I think, I think that’s been quite refreshing actually.

Setul:

Agreed, agreed. And, and look and see the point that you just mentioned there, you being able to ask the questions of individuals that others may want you to ask, right? As we said, we’re turning tails around. So going forward as cobwebs dusted off the past, done, let’s get straight into getting your views. So, uh, I guess I start with new individuals coming in. All those less experienced life cover and the advice around that is the easy go to, you know, for many, that’s where they’ll start off with, that’s the first conversation they can have. But then they move into kick an IP or we want people to move into kick an IP and instantly you hear words like comprehensive and complexity. Um, I guess what would be your advice, your top for somebody who’s worrying about moving from just life advice through to Kick or ip? Roy, let’s start with you this time if we can.

Roy:

Okay. So, um, uh, first of all, get into this advice. Um, you know, there is such a huge opportunity. Our marketplace is, is gigantic. Um, you know, I, some people don’t like using the, the terminology protection gap, but I’m sorry, there is a massive protection gap because you’ve got broadly 25 million people out there, okay? There are, you know, uh, best 20,000 advisors in this country, but I suspect most people will say 10,000 or less that are doing protection advice. So we need more people talking about it. Um, to, to your specific question, I think it’s as simple as asking about the propensity of things happening. I e with all of those people out there living their busy lives and covid comes along and all of these horrible things come along, what’s most likely to happen to people. And I think if you start with a piece of paper that says you are five times more likely to be off long-term, ill three times more likely to have a critical illness than one, you know, the 5 31 model of dying.

Roy:

And you can effectively sell that concept into people. Okay? Then I think the rest works for itself because actually what we’re looking at is the propensity of, of of, of something vastly occurring. And I think that common sense approach will make people work out that, um, although historically we started off with life and the other two have fallen into place, actually you can argue it should be completely halfway way round. Um, and I think, you know, the other thing to talk to people about on literally on day one of, of protection training school is what happens when a claim occurs us free of being around the block, shall I say, in a nicer possible way, um, where we know that we’re all here really for claims, okay? And when a claim occurs, you know, we will know the feedback you get from a customer, from a client and just actually strangely how good it makes you feel about doing a job. I think if you’ve talked to, to new people straight away about claims and show those stories and, and, and how we actually mean and make a difference, then to answer your question another way, they’ll say, well, what’s most likely to happen to these people I’m gonna talk to? And actually, those other two subjects will come to the fore rather than the antiquated, you know, sort of dinosaur way that our industry have been doing of we better talk about love short first. Cuz it’s the simplest thing to talk about.

Setul:

I think, I think claims is a really good point cuz actually when I, when I talk to individuals who’ve gone through that claims experience, the advisors they talk with far greater conviction to the client. Something changes. We, we know the value of the claims going through, but something genuinely changes than they talk with conviction. Thank you Catherine.

Kathryn:

So I’m gonna go from it from a slightly different context just cause obviously why I was given a, a really good, good set of views there. So I’m gonna come a tip form the advisor in the sense of the advisor themselves and say for me, when you are starting off, and for anybody who’s doing a special protection advice, so, uh, to be honest, any form of advice and financial space is to always be in the back of your mind asking yourself, why haven’t I done this? So it’s not a case of sort of just thinking, oh, I should do criticalness, I should do IP or anything like that. And then there maybe fall away because you’re so busy and know, as you said, life was a nice easy thing. Everybody, everybody kind of has that mindset of thinking, well, life insurance is the grown up thing to do.

Kathryn:

I should have that, but critical illness, income protection, no, I don’t really know anyone’s got that. I don’t really know, you know, I’m not sure if I’m wanna pay into it. That kind of thing. More to the advisor, well why haven’t I done this? Well, why haven’t I done IP for this person? Because I’m gonna need to answer to my compliance people as to why I’ve not done income protection. I’m gonna have to answer to somebody somewhere why I’ve done not done critical illness. Now I can either answer myself and feel happy that I fulfilled that myself or at some point some in compliance is gonna ask me about that on my cases. And obviously worst case scenario, you’re gonna have the F C A or Foz asking you why you haven’t done those things now without wanting to scare people or anything, you know.

Kathryn:

But at the same point, being very clear about this, we do have the consumer duty coming into place and there’s lots and lots of aspects of consumer duty, huge aspects upon the vulnerability of a client. And what people need to realize as well when they’re coming into advice is that you are, you have people’s vulnerability within your hands. If someone has come to you and they are working and they don’t have income protection, then that is a level of vulnerability if it’s for their financial security. Um, critical illness, obviously, arguably as well, life insurance, especially if you’re speaking to someone who’s got a mortgage, majority of cases that they would need life insurance. Not all cases, just to be clear, I don’t want anybody sitting go, ha ha cut her out on that one. Majority of cases. Um, you would need, um, life insurance. And again, it’s that thing of well why, why put your clients at financial risk?

Kathryn:

And then if for whatever reason at the front of your mind you are not thinking that, why put yourself at risk by not doing a thorough job and by at least not writing down. Not everybody is gonna want to go ahead with um, critical illness cover or income protection or life insurance depending upon their mindset, depending upon their circumstances and depending upon their budget and many things. But that doesn’t mean that as an advisor, you shouldn’t give them options to consider. Make sure you record that. And um, and that would be my, my main thing to be honest, is just say always ask yourself, why haven’t I done it? Why haven’t I done enhanced kick instead of core kick? There can be incredible reasons why not to, why have I done two single policies instead of doing a joint policy? You know, why haven’t I done the joint cover for the mortgage? Again, there can be reasons outside the box sometimes, but you need to make sure that you are comfortable answering all of those questions just in case you have a challenged.

Setul:

Uh, uh, you know, the bit I’ve taken away there is you, you have people’s vulnerabilities in your hands. That, that is powerful because that is something that we should be able to help people with and support them the value of advice as much as anything else too. So, thank you. And I guess talking about vulnerabilities and thinking about this advisor now we’ve gotten from life into giving kick in IP advice. Again, real human beings will have vulnerabilities, they will have condi conditions that they will disclose and sometimes those will be, um, and actually wonderful, we’ve got cure many of us use to be able to support with those scenarios from the mainstream providers. But when you are having conversations and, and both of you with clients and you come across that declined conversation or one way, you’ll have to communicate that, how do you approach that conversation? You’ve got our advisor there in the background worried about having that conversation. What would you suggest to them? What did you say earlier in your career the first time you were approaching that conversation? Catherine can start with you. It can be life or I, uh, click or ip, whichever.

Kathryn:

Yeah, I’m happy to to cover any of them. I think the thing is, is that the approach has to be consistent across any of them. What you need to remember is that regardless of how busy you are and what’s going on, you have a human there who’s heard something that’s not nice. And I think, you know, it’s very kind. I’ve said this from the start, haven’t I? When I always done things from the marketing and outreach and everything that I was declined by all but two insurers and you know, I got that decline letter and all that stuff and it was a huge hit, massive hit. And you know, there are ramifications for that. You know, it’s all well and good. Sending a letter to somebody’s telling a decision that’s not a human aspect of it, that is just blunt and not particularly nice. And the role of the advisor is to try and kind of backtrack that bluntness that somebody will have faced when they’re being contacted.

Kathryn:

And what you need to do when you approach people is just remember that this isn’t nice. It’s not nice for you. It is really, really not nice for them. You need prepared that they could be angry, you know, and it’s, they’re not angry at you. They’re angry at this situation. In all fairness, and I’m sorry to any insurers this thing, they’re gonna be angry at you insurers, there’s no doubting it. And I think, you know, we have to accept that they could sometimes be angry at the advisor, you know, if the advisor has maybe made a mistake somewhere. And again, people are, human advisors are human and sometimes you might have made a silly mistake and it could be that you went for, I dunno, a certain product type as an example. Probably a really clear example on this one is, um, let’s say you’re trying to get critical illness cover for something.

Kathryn:

I’m not talking about the client saying, I’m gonna just talk about an exclusion really quickly, if that’s okay. So you’ve got critical illness cover, you’ve got somebody with Crohn’s, okay, with some insurers, their core critical illness cover, they can have it. That’s it. You know, there may be a premium increase depending upon the situation, but they can have it. But as an advisor you’ve thought, I’m gonna be really good here. I’m gonna give them enhanced critical illness cover, I’m gonna be really, really brilliant. Well, that person now faces a Crohn’s exclusion because on the enhanced contract there is quos there, they already have Crohn’s. So it will be excluded from the claim set. And you might have someone become quite annoyed because all of a sudden, you know, you’ve said, oh no, it’s okay. But then you’ve wanted to do a really good job, but then you’ve not known because there are so many variations.

Kathryn:

These contracts, you’ve not normal. Actually Crohn’s has suddenly slipped in there as being the <laugh> the extra thing on offer. And you know, you need to just be prepared to sit back and listen to what that person needs to say. Listen to what they need to vent, try and not, I, I think it’s important not to try and brush things aside. You know, if you were in that situation, like I just said there, just say, look, I’m really sorry when I went for the enhanced options, I didn’t realize that Crohn’s would be specifically named. Cause when we spoke originally about the first one, it wasn’t there on that policy set. But no matter what, you can have whichever option you want. It’s the cancer, it’s the heart attack, it’s the stroke, it’s the MS that you want covering. Cause they’re the main conditions. And I think you just need to be open sometimes to, if it’s you that’s put something forward and it’s being declined, being open to the fact that there’s potentially not been, you know, you, you’ve not done the, the, to their eyes, you’ve not done the best job for them.

Kathryn:

Even though you’ve maybe done the best job. It could be that there’s been a GP report and there’s something, as I know plenty of times, there’s something in the GP report that the client has no knowledge of or their medical history is stronger than what they have internalized. And it’s very, very difficult. Very softly speaking, gentle tones offering solutions. And the key thing, and I’ll leave this one open Tory, because I know this’ll be an area that he wants, is if you have looked at all your options and all you are seeing is declined, it doesn’t mean that it’s declined everywhere. I’ve certainly had it before where people have come to me cause they’ve been declined at one insurer through an advice firm who have certain amounts of like, I’m not saying specific advice firm, but you know, some firms have certain panels and then they’ve come to us and we’ve got them standard elsewhere just purely because we’ve got different options. But, um, I’ll throw that over to you writer, have your art mention of the, uh, of the S word.

Roy:

Um, yeah, I mean I’ve, first of all, I’ll take a step back here and I think, you know, on our business cards, does anyone still have a business card? Uh, it does say protection advisors. We are advising on the protection. And I think it’s very important that people realize that part of that is us explaining the process. And I think you have to explain underwriting to the client. I would say right at the start, okay? And, and start positioning the fact that there are issues with the NHS and send in reports back. Okay, nobody’s fault. Not even Romans. Uh, but you know, you need to position that and you also need to position the fact that sometimes there are vagaries in the system. Okay? But that is where we need to get involved. I think we need to contextualize this straight away and say the number of decline are a fraction of underwriting.

Roy:

And there are thinking these strange words called postponements and exclusions and all these terminology. And again, we are the protection advisor. We’re gonna have to explain, explain that. Um, I also think that it’s very important that, um, as Catherine’s alluded to, we are right at the start of bad news involved. Um, if, if any, if anything, I would, I would rather all insurers come straight to advisors with bad news. Um, you know, when you hear stories that I’m writing directly to, to customers, uh, it just, it gau me. I’m, I’m, you know, we’re the ones that have given the advice that surely that that news should come via us because we’ve got the skillset to go out and explain to people what that scenario is and look for solutions. And again, I, yeah, first controversial moment of the morning settle, I think sometimes we’re guilty of giving up.

Roy:

Um, you know, I’ve heard, I’ve heard of advice, oh, I’ve declined. Oh, that’s it. Oh yeah, it’s, I’m not gonna get this anywhere else. I’m, you know, that’s it. Um, and then we start promoting the industry. Okay. I think sometimes we’ve gotta push this. And I think Catherine and I will give you lots of examples of people who have had initially bad news and we’ve gone unspoken to underwriters and found out what that news is and, and acted on behalf of the customer whereby, you know, you might take them off onto a journey to go and talk to their consultants or to their GP or whatever the case may be. And had these things turned around, um, because of misinterpretations of particularly when some people write in, um, and, uh, some underwriting decisions are made on the basis of, of misinterpretations of reports. Um, so I think it’s really important that that straight away after having positioned that we’re ready to act when some news comes in and act on behalf of our clients because they are our clients.

Roy:

Um, what Catherine’s alluding to as well is that, you know, if, if you get a situation where you really do have bad news, but it’s just, again, just reemphasize, this is a very, very small proportion of applications, then, you know, you shrug those shoulders and realize that you need a specialist and you signpost. Um, and I think, um, you know, there are many of us in the industry that have been around for, for years that that signposts cons consistently because we realize there are certain situations where you do need someone to come in. Um, I also think, uh, you need to know what you are talking about when it comes to underwriting. So when people throw up preexisting conditions, you don’t know have to be a, you know, walking, uh, um, dictionary on these sort of things. But, you know, to be able to go off and talk to, to c i expert or whoever it is about, you know, what, what, whatever, whatever source there is.

Roy:

Um, and you know, Keira obviously, um, so I, I think, you know, we’ve gotta stop this giving up too easily. And I, and I do sense this and what, what worries me about maybe some of our mortgage and wealth cousins is that they might hear too many of these stories, which puts them off. Okay? Broadly speaking, we can cover very, the vast majority of people in the uk right? In some, in some shape or form. And I think when you can explain an exclusion or a postponement, and by the way, please, please, please re postponement, put someone in your diary to go back and see, yeah, okay. It’s not for the client to remember that they’ve been postponed. It’s for us to remember that they’ve been postponed. Um, I think you will get things overturned and, and, and, uh, let, let me assure our listeners, you get a postponement overturned or an exclusion overturned a year down the line, you’ve got a very, very happy, uh, happy customer. So I guess what I’m trying to say, uh, uh, long answer to short question Seth, was we’ve gotta be much more hands on as advisors because isn’t that our role? Isn’t that what we get paid for? Ultimately

Setul:

Not, you spot on. And I think about, I don’t think it’s controversial. I think people listen to the podcast right now, you know, the purpose of the question is to give them confidence not to give up straightaway, to take that extra step, have that conversation. We are the advisor and that involves having more than just a, a, a simple conversation and Skype posting where required or learning a little bit more and being open and honest and brave enough to continue that conversation. Cuz you’re also right, we’ll spend more time thinking about exclusions when they are probably the smaller element of marketplace, but they are an element of the marketplace, hence the question in itself. So, um, uh, I guess let me, let me take that a little bit further then. So the other thing that a lot of advisors across the industry will be getting more and more used or involved in is we had TCF and post tcf, we had vulnerable customers and some individuals will be dealing with vulnerable customers all the time. And vulnerability can come in different sorts of ways. But again, if I think back to the individual either experienced or new actually that’s having to deal with vulnerable customers for the first or second or third time. Do, do you change tax when you find out somebody’s vulnerable? How do you unearth that conversation? What, what goes through your mind because you are going to autopilot is you are used to this but other people might not. So, you know, what, what’s your sort of top tipper idea or, or bit of comfort for somebody listening?

Roy:

Do you want to say that one? Why should I <laugh> Yes, that side. Well, it, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s quite fascinating. I dunno, anybody listening in on list that does, uh, wealth advice will, will know that we have to have a vulnerable customers report now. Um, so, uh, because it’s, it’s as act as it is with people with investments as it is, with people with protection. So that, that is quite fascinating. Um, listen, um, I I think hopefully we’re all, we’re all of the mindset that, um, every person in the UK should have some sort of protection no matter what their scenario is. And I think what the, the key here is, is that, um, there are vulnerabilities and vulnerabilities takes a huge, huge, uh, o o overflowing, uh, uh, subject matter. But I, I think again, this comes back to, you know, what are we doing?

Roy:

We are advising people on their protection, and that is people who are vulnerable. Um, i in, in a ways, and I think, you know, we have to learn empathy in this job. We have to learn understanding, we have to learn situations in this job. That’s what it’s about. And, and yes, all right, it might be easier if you’ve been around slightly longer, um, looking at you and I settle, uh, uh, uh, because we might have, you know, slightly more experience of that. But actually the, the fact that we’re even having this conversation is a bit of a eureka moment anyway, because no one was mentioned, vulnerable customers until very, very recently. So I think that empathy and that ability to understand and let, if we, if we come from that again, I’ll get back to that blanket sheet of paper. Let’s assume that 25 million people, I’m gonna assume there are 25 million working people, by the way, that’s what, that’s my, uh, that’s my crude, uh, crude working job assumption. Agreed. Uh, okay. All need protection advice. Okay. I, I don’t really care. Um, you know, it’s there, there’s no prejudice in any of the advice I think that, but, but empathy is something that I think should be taught in the training and of advisors, um, not just for vulnerable customers, for for, for, for, for people across the piece. But I think if you’re empathetic with your, with your customers, actually there’s a connection there immediately because empathy, and this is very, very simple concept shows you care.

Setul:

Catherine, there’s 32.8 million people in the UK work. You know, I, I may stack you, I know I’d be right. I was gonna let, I was gonna let go with it. And, and you’re right, e empathy, soft skills, the human engagement. Um, and maybe people will spend more time thinking about it than they will in the conversation itself. How do you approach it? What, what’s your, your,

Kathryn:

I think the key thing that anybody needs to know straightaway is what their firm and what their compliance especially are establishing as to what a vulnerability is. So vulnerability can be almost everyone, and there needs to be a point where you go, hang on a minute, are we treating everyone as vulnerable or is there certain things that stand out as really, really vulnerable? So, you know, we could probably think, you know, top of our head, you know, somebody has dementia, we’d probably all, you know, imagine at that point this is a vulnerable person. They shouldn’t be engaging in insurance contracts without at least some kind of power of attorneys in place or somebody else. Um, there, you know, so we know that we can all do everything absolutely right for this person. Some people might assume, um, somebody with quite significant mental health, you know, might be vulnerable potentially, but not always.

Kathryn:

You know, somebody might assume someone who’s quite, you know, far down sort of like the diagnosis of Parkinson’s might be vulnerable, very likely. But again, just because someone’s been diagnosed with so long with something doesn’t necessarily mean, so it could be, you know, do you have flags in your systems in place to say, oh, this person’s come to me because they are, um, because their partner’s just been diagnosed with a terminal illness and now my client’s vulnerable because they’re actually facing a situation that’s emotionally gonna be vote traumatic, potentially financially traumatic. Is it that somebody has just told you that they’re having a new child? Well that’s the financial vulnerability straightaway, that there’s gonna be a new mouth to feed. You know, potentially, depending on how many children’s, there can be implications in terms of the mortgage providers they can access. There are so many different things that can come into vulnerability.

Kathryn:

And I think what you need to do is just make sure that you know exactly what your company, their processes, um, what the expectations are of you in our company. Because we do have the risk with the fact that we do speak to a lot of people who have been declined insurance in different places. And I think a lot of people probably assume that quite a lot of our clients are vulnerable. Now, maybe we don’t have, I wanna say a strict, uh, thing in terms of vulnerability as some firms, but I think we are just incredibly trained to spot what is really a vulnerability and what isn’t. But what we have is that on every single one of our cases, every single one of our clients, all of our systems that are, um, bespoke built by us, and um, each client has their own electronic file and all of my, anybody in my firm can click a button on a client to Slack, to flag to me and say, this person I believe is potentially vulnerable.

Kathryn:

So, not that they’ve said that they are, but just that they have maybe an inkling at that point. I go in and I’m going, right, what’s going on? And I will investigate it and I will establish it. The majority of the time there isn’t anything to sort of sort, it’s, it’s more of a case of, look, this person’s just gone. I’m worried and maybe it’s my compliance approach and everything, but everyone in my firm seems to be very, very on top of making sure they don’t do things that I won’t be happy with, uh, <laugh>. But you know, they’re, I seem to get quite a few things and I’m going, it’s okay, don’t worry, but just chat to me cuz as well, the advisor themselves needs to feel comfortable if they’re speaking to someone that feels vulnerable, that for the advisor themselves, they may feel completely out of their comfort zone and they need somebody to talk to.

Kathryn:

Um, but there are obviously times where it can come up that it’s very, that there is a vulnerability. One thing that we notice quite a lot of cure and and say quite a lot as thinking the ma the majority of the vulnerability that gets flagged with us is people who are wanting insurance for somebody else who has quite significant, um, medical history, but there isn’t a power of attorney in place. Now that can often be, um, what we tend to find is more sort of adults who have adult children and they may be wanting to get some funeral cuff in places are just in case things like that. But there’s maybe not a power of attorney. And then obviously that means that we are going to vulnerable situations. Um, there’s quite a few different offshoots in terms of advice in terms of that. And you know, we do have ones’s been some recently where I’ve stepped in, I was very thankful of my advisor re you know, sorry, flagging it to me and I’ve had to step in and sort of like do quite a bit of a vulnerability aspect of it.

Kathryn:

There are systems that are obviously being developed lots and lots of places. Um, but yeah, you need to establish another one that’s really key is English, not as a first language. That’s an extra one to think of. Um, and another one as well that’s just popped into mind as well is that, um, and it comes back to the side posting side of things as well, is that with certain religions you are not allowed to buy protection insurance, um, due to, to the laws of the religion. And again, it’s that kind of thing of, well it’s, it’s not okay to turn and say, well no, I can’t, I’ve not heard of this before and I, I don’t know, cause I don’t think any of my policies do this. You need to find someone and seek out someone that can step in, help that person. Cause it’s not good enough just to say, I’m not for you. And yeah, it’s not really what I can do kind of thing. I hope that helps anyway.

Setul:

No, it, it definitely does. But, but again, as I’m listening to your answers, I’m thinking actually you’ve got a few more advisors who are now getting a little bit more worried. But your last point there is signpost, there are individuals that can support help and you’ve trained us all very well, Catherine, and for all of us when we’re getting into our conversation, but, but there are people there to help, there’s information there to help. And we shouldn’t be afraid of having the conversation, even if it’s not us in signpost and somebody else. But at least we know at the end of the day the client and that’s the most in important individual gets the advice they need and our protectors.

Kathryn:

Absolutely.

Setul:

Uh, I’m gonna move on into a slightly different space, um, if I may. So, um, I’m delighted that diversity inclusion insurance is getting a little bit more air time within financial services, but a lot of different reasons. But that’s good. And I think it’d beers of me not to say thank you for your support last year with the open partnership where we’re trying to support our advisors into engaging into the conversation and not being scared straight away when the topic comes up because, you know, rightly or wrongly, it, it’s an area that people will get nervous about in terms of wanting to engage with clients. Uh, I guess it’s no different to our conversation before, but, uh, are you experiencing, and, and this is to both of you sort of more lgbtq plus clients getting involved in asking for insurance and, and are there any deviations or changes to be aware of that would be helpful and and what’s your experience in this film?

Kathryn:

I was gonna say, I was gonna say if I, if I just depart this one, the um, the first thing for me that stands out is that a lot of the time I wouldn’t have a clue if someone is, you know, because obviously I do everything online for a lot of people, obviously the majority, I can’t think of any insurance application where it’s going to come up, someone’s sexuality, the times it does come in as if obviously you are starting to talk about, um, the full family. Think it’s important to always make sure that some little tidbits when someone says to you, I’m married, make sure that you keep referring to that person as their partner until you establish whether or not as to to do the gender that’s there. But I think a really key thing for me in terms of this, and I’m I’ll say from the start, I’m sorry insurers, but I’m also not sorry because I have to do this.

Kathryn:

One of the biggest issues that we can have is in terms of, um, gender recognition and people being able to put down the gender that they are, and especially now that it’s not just male and female, there are lots and lots of different genders. And one of the first things that I say to people if they would speak to me and the is that conversation, um, that’s coming up is I’ll say to them that I’m really sorry, but the insurer’s systems make me put in that they are male or female, that I have no control over that. And that in my systems I will put them down whatever title suits them, I will mark down whatever gender they are and I will really make sure to listen out as well as the really key thing, listen out. If they start to refer to themselves as they or them or their partner is that, try and make sure that you pick that up and just say, can I just check?

Kathryn:

You said they are them. Is that the, um, are they, are those the pronouns that, I dunno, Sally likes to go by? Um, if so, I will make a note. So I make sure that at the best I can, I will continue to, to use those pronouns in the right way. Um, but the only, to me, the, the, the key time that it comes up is to do with the gender and that being put into the application. So I just straight away say it. I kind of just go, it’s not, it’s not for me, I’m very sorry, but the insurers, the makers do it that way. And unfortunately we do need to put down male or female. Um, and a lot of the time people are absolutely fine with myself, touch wood, I’m not gonna have an issue now. Um, we just have a grumble about the insurers

Roy:

Really. Yeah, again, I’m unfortunately, uh, so for the second time, I’m apologize for my age. I’m old enough to remember when in the, uh, late eighties, early nineties, um, I mean, quite frankly it was shocking what used to happen in terms of people were asked about their, their sexuality and, and origins and, and obviously, you know, uh, people were asked about aids. Um, and, uh, you know, I mean you just cringe when you look back now and, and think about what people were asked and, and what happened in those days. Um, thankfully the industry has come on leaps and bounds. Do you know, it’s funny, I was only thinking about this on Saturday cause I dunno if you, you guys saw, uh, the recent census that was done on, everybody has now asked this question for the first time ever. Um, and I wonder whether that this is a, a key moment for the insurers to adjust those questions to, to Catherine’s point, because you’ve just been asked about it in a, in a census.

Roy:

And there could be something, uh, along the lines of according to the census, remember the the census is compulsory. Yeah. The census is something you have to fill out. Um, and maybe this is, there’s a, there’s a a time now to, to adjust that first question. Uh, according to the recent se you know, sensors, da, da da, I think, I think that might be quite, quite good. We’re slightly different because, um, uh, we we’re not telephone based, we’re face-to-face. Um, so it’s obviously easy to have, uh, conversations, uh, along that respect in, in, in, in many ways. Um, the one thing that still worries me, I have to say is, um, and this is a diversity point, is firstly the makeup of advisors from different ethnic groups. Uh, I still go to conferences and, uh, it’s, it’s just embarrassing. Um, you know, when, when, when you, when you look around rooms, we, we got to address that, uh, uh, far better than it was.

Roy:

Um, and I also include in that amount of female, um, you know, uh, probably more of a, probably on the investment side, but still in the protection side, uh, you know, we, we, we need to, we need to address that. Um, but also advice given two different ethnic groups as well. Um, I I I I’ve seen alarming stats on that, um, ashore better than it was, but you know, that, that, that’s crazy. You know, it, it comes back to my blank sheet of paper and we should be covering everybody irrespective of, of of, of whatever origin, uh, anybody has. And I, I think, I think we, we need to catch up here with some other industries a little bit. I, I don’t see this being talked about en enough. I think, uh, um, you know, we’ve also got a problem with, with age. Uh, the demographic of our industry is, is is still far too skew with, you know, where are those 20 year olds? Um, you know, you go, you go to these, uh, conferences as the three of us do, and you look around and that’s wrong. Um, so there’s so many, I mean, we could be talking about this, this all day because this, this question goes into a realm of, of, of, of different, um, answers, which actually probably should be broken down, may maybe another podcast settle. But, uh,

Setul:

<laugh>. But the, the good news is I can give you a bit of reassurance. So if I think about my world, um, and we have lots of different parts of, of the partnership, but I am genuinely c a the average age of the advisor going down, great. I am definitely seeing a greater gender balance, um, seeing a greater number. We, we have sort of a, a part of our organization called Our Financial who has a incredibly diverse, um, ethnicity and background course. So there is definitely a change happening and it has started, but it would be love to sit lovely to see more of that across the more generic con conferences that go on across, um, the whole of the uk. And I think that will come and seeing localized conferences change, but I think that will come. But, but that’s good news as I am seeing the average age of a client come down too. But it’s been a long time. It’s been a long time to get there and it’ll still take a while, but you’re right. Could be another podcast in itself.

Roy:

And there are strange, there are a strange bakeries in your question. I mean, I’ve met the guys from Al very impressive. And obviously, you know, you know Anna umbrella, you know, uh, the point they all make is that there are parts of society that people haven’t even thought about who find it hard just to find an advisor because they come from a different background. And I think, you know, uh, aiming at certain areas such as that is, is genius. And, and, and, and, and to be encouraged because, uh, Catherine’s already mentioned that the language barrier, you know, uh, I mean, US three probably struggle half the time to understand some of the, uh, the underwriting language, you know, to translate that into certain other languages must be must be dreadful. Um, you know, uh, we, we interestingly have have the same problem in a pension. Well, but ass a a chat for another day. But I think, you know, these new brilliant companies that are recognizing those, those opportunities and, and, and seeking out, uh, solutions, uh, you know, need a huge round of applause.

Setul:

You know, my summary would be humans are humans, right? We, we should deal with humans no matter where, what, how, who,

Roy:

Exactly. Exactly.

Setul:

But well let, let me start going a bit more broad, broader than in terms of my questions there. So qualifications, um, is a topic that’s cropping up in the protection sector quite a bit, and certainly I’ve seen elements in the media. What, what are your thoughts do you think protection advisors should be mandated in terms of getting qualifications? Do you think that might impact on C p D rules? Is CP staff strong enough at the moment? Uh, what are your thoughts around that space more broadly?

Kathryn:

I’m gonna have to be so political here. Um,

Roy:

No, no, no, no. That’s not our, that’s not our podcast. You just say what you want.

Kathryn:

So, um, I think it’s nothing short of ridiculous that protection advisors do not have to have qualifications. I, I cannot for the life of me understand why mortgages, pensions, investment. I can’t understand why that area is seen as so much more complex in a sense or regulated in the protection side. And, and I do have thoughts that will, as to why that is and now shall, I’ll keep them to myself. Kathryn,

Setul:

I’m the host. I’m the host here. Share your thoughts please.

Kathryn:

Um, I need to make sure the podcaster is live. Okay, <laugh>. Um, no, I think, you know, it’s, it is, it is silly. It is really silly. And I think the problem is, is that there’s nothing out there. And we have called out and cried for it so much. There have been attempts. Um, I did try and sit some protection qualifications and quickly had to, to, to be honest, I quickly stepped in and made sure that that was, in a sense stopped because it wasn’t protection insurance training at all. It was a third protection and two thirds general insurance. So it, it wasn’t achieving anything. Um, and based upon what it was, there is a certificate in protection that people can get, which is obviously really positive that people can do that. But I think it’s, I, I just don’t understand why. And I mean, it comes down to the whole thing as well of that thing of people in the industry, the regulators, whoever is setting these requirements, not seeing protection as vital as the other aspects.

Kathryn:

And it’s, and it’s bizarre because we still fall under the same consumer duties. We still fall under the fees and everything that are required and, and all that kind of thing. And we’re still being upholded to the advice, um, requirements that, and, and rules and complaints and everything else that will be held against us. But yet there is nothing. And you know, I, I do know of firms where, you know, and I’m don’t think it’s unusual for firms to bring someone in, give them two days training and that’s it. You an advisor, which is terrifying because it is so, so complex. And that’s, and I’m not just saying that in the basis of mean health conditions and the risks that we look at, but the policies and everything are complex and how you would build up a full protection package for somebody. Um, I think it needs doing.

Kathryn:

I think it’s a shame that, and I don’t wanna talk myself at our job here, but I think it’s a shame that someone like myself, someone like Matt Chapman as well, who I know there’s a lot of training in the area, it shouldn’t be two random advisors in the UK up to them to start to develop training modules that actually make things right for people and for people to actually know how to really train themselves to do the best of these products. Obviously I’ve developed my protection competency exam, which is something that people can sit and just to double check if they are actually competent in protection because lots of people just haven’t even got that, you know, they’re not sitting these industry exams. There isn’t any requirements. I think, I’m sure the firms who don’t set those requirements probably will be cursing me. Cause they don’t necessarily want to have to put all their team through the cost of exams and all that kind of stuff.

Kathryn:

But ultimately we see advice where it’s going wrong. And I’m not saying that you have to be, that you can’t do it wrong if you are qualified, um, you know, everybody can make a mistake. Um, but it just, it baffles me. It absolutely baffles me that, like we said, we hold people’s financial vulnerabilities in our hands. We’re, we’re doing stuff that is potentially going to be the difference between a family losing their home, um, somebody having to live off the state for however many years if they were ill and unable to work anymore. And so it’s not only just helping that person, it’s helping the n h s, it’s helping all the benefit systems for the government and everything. And pretty much all you need to do is pick up somebody, you know, pick up a phone and just say to someone, oh yeah, I can advise you on this and you’re done and dusted. And that’s it. It’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s silly. Let’s just leave it at that. That’d be my word. It’s silly

Roy:

Roy. Okay. I I’ve got a slightly different angle. Um, I think that, uh, to become a, a UK based financial advisor, you have to go through the ro set of exams to become certified, as you know. Okay. Um, so why, why reinvent the wheel? Why don’t we just adjust those existing exams and have a proper protection part within them? Okay. We’ve all seen those syllabuses and the protection, uh, component is, uh, ridiculously too short. Okay? So I think all we should do is, uh, go to the, uh, exam setters. Um, and we’ve offered this, uh, certainly the pdg have, have had, have had one meeting with the C i I, I know the c I have got other issues at the moment. But, uh, and sit down with people who do protection on a daily basis. Okay? And we know some people who set exams as well, and let us help you expand the current RO process, okay?

Roy:

Because if someone’s coming into this industry, they probably wanna be certified. Okay? So they probably want to do all of the various exams across some of the other areas as well. I think we just need to adjust the current ones that we’ve got. Um, but we need to do this quickly because, um, otherwise what this is perpetuating is the myth, but unfortunately <laugh> truism at the same time that, uh, protection is the poor relation of financial advice. Okay? If we were integral to the RO exams, which I’m sure everyone at open work has gone through, and all the other people that we know, and there was a proper integral modu module helped set by people who are in our industry because we’re the only people that know these, these, these situations, then surely we can redeem this situation very, very quickly. Um, I think the, uh, the ideas that some people have thrown up about completely going back to scratch and starting this all over again in reality are not gonna happen and they’re not gonna happen quick enough.

Roy:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I, you know, I I I think our plea would be come and let people like the pdg, a representative organization, uh, sit down with the exam setting bodies and show you why your current exams, uh, have, have, are asking the wrong questions. Uh, I mean, to Catherine’s point, I’ve, I’ve looked at some of these exams myself. Um, I mean it’s, it, it’s crazy. Some of the, some of, some of the material in there, uh, make them up to date, make ’em fit for purpose and make, uh, someone coming out with a certification, um, and then maybe a chart, a chartership, uh, fully competent on protection. Uh, now, uh, the only, the only downside of what I said as Catherine’s alluded to is there are some firms that are maybe gonna say that could be a, a step too far. Um, but I think if we just keep saying that’s a step too far, we’re never gonna get anywhere. Um, and I’m just minded of there are some professions that, you know, you can walk in and start advising on this afternoon, and those are the professions that make mistakes. We don’t want to be one of those, um, protections should be underpinning all financial advice, hence let’s just adjust the stuff that we’ve got already and not reinvent any wealth.

Setul:

I I remember FPC 1 23 moving to ro ro one to sit for an example being a step far with the number of publications required, but, but the WellSpace has fundamentally changed and, and clients are now better off for it. So I agree. They don’t think this is step far. It’s trying to make sure everybody’s engaging with the right people. One down ward is that, that thing for an actually capital, you made the point around general insurance and protection. Cuz I also do see a lot of that merging together. And they are two very different areas requiring two very different skill sets and both individually are great for what they need.

Kathryn:

Well, from what you was saying, I was gonna say avoid just from what you were saying there as well, in terms of the hour five, not, like you said, not reinventing, but there, the hour five itself, there’s two or three chapters on general insurance. It’s protection insurance training module, and a good portion of it is nothing to do with protection insurance. It should just be protection insurance. As you say, it’s too short at the moment in a sense, obviously, I’m sure everyone again wouldn’t be happy saying that, but there need, there is so much more protection that could be in there and it isn’t. And um,

Setul:

And what about ccpd? What are, what are your thoughts on C P D? So, uh, uh, and my place didn’t say whether it’s too much or too little. Do we need less? Do we need more? But C P D is the one that keeps people updating. Well,

Roy:

Isn’t that, isn’t it strange when, when the, uh, when the regulator announced few years ago that you, everyone had to do 15 hours at least the protection in order to advise on protection. Okay. Which doesn’t mean sell it necessarily. It’s advise on it. I think a lot of us went Eureka, what a fantastic, what a fantastic moment. This is gonna be great. I the sense I kept talking to insurers who generally will know about C P D because, you know, the structure of C P D are the courses that they set, you know, is that, um, I’m not completely sure that this is happening and, and I just wonder, this seems to have just slept on, slipped under the proverbial carpet of, um, of something that we are all supposed to be doing. Um, but, but, you know, doesn’t seem to have been done. And also I get a sense that c p d needs to be a positive thing.

Roy:

Okay? Yes. There’s an element at the start of January, we all roll our eyes and go, oh, here we go. Okay, here we go again. We’ve gotta do our 35 hours of chat. But look, that’s just start of January chat. Yeah. We all know that ultimately when you go on a course or you go on, you know, you sit on a good webinar and stuff, you actually do get something from it. Okay? And actually it’s, it’s a positive in the end. And, and I suspect many of us will tell our clients because people do say, what’s your ongoing training about C P d? I certainly do. Okay. Um, I think if you go into the wrong attitude on C P G training, particularly with, uh, minds on protection, we’re not gonna get anywhere. And I think we probably need to come together and collaborate more as an industry and just make it, uh, more interesting.

Roy:

Um, you know, we need to reinvent the, uh, you know, the, there’s still a protection and there’s a little bit of a yawn sign that goes over people’s mouths, but also relevant to people’s lives. And I, I think the key there is, um, uh, you know, particularly the mortgage and the wealth guys and, and, and the group insurers, uh, the group advisors as well is, is just reaffirming why if you’re doing a large, um, um, you know, portfolio of pensions and isis or if you’re doing someone’s mortgage or if you’re doing someone’s deaf in service and, and, and whatever the, uh, protection’s got a underline, all of that advice. And to be proficient on of that, you must have the adequate, uh, and relevant C P D, which can translate the other advice over to the protection advice that should be underpinning it.

Kathryn:

Yeah, I mean I think for me with C P D obviously it’s absolutely essential. And I think what people need to be really aware of as well is that, and this is something that came to me when I was started doing the podcast and especially with trying to get the Cp D aspect on the podcast, which is obviously we’re a really good resource for people, is that even if you’ve sat structured c p d, unless you’ve got something from it, it’s not being structured. You’ve not actually, you know, so you can sit as much as you want in terms of the structured side and you know, but if you’re just gonna be phoning it in when you’re trying to do the training in a sense, then that’s not gonna work. I mean, what I really like from insurers recently is the fact they seem to have been listening to the fact of what we’ve been saying in terms of C P D because there was nothing more boring than turning up to a webinar where you had an insurer or somebody else, you know, turning from a going life insurance.

Kathryn:

And you’d all internally grown obviously, wouldn’t you? And you’d just be like, well, we all know what life insurance and, and it would actually literally be like that. Whereas now we are starting to get those better dynamics. They are starting to apply case studies. They may be starting to offer some of the more complex ones. I mean, I think a big thing for me would be to say that, you know, within insurer, a specialist, it like what I always say, make it interesting. So, you know, maybe have a tier of training for people who are brand new to the industry who really just need the basics to get them started. To not bombard them with two information in 60 minutes. Then have another tier where you’ve got you more senior advisors who need the more complex stuff. You know, at that point they probably are gonna be looking more at the things like the gift into Vox, um, into P Box, into v os, even um, the I H T planning, potentially the gift plan, anything like that.

Kathryn:

You know, we need the strongest stuff there. We need the complex stuff. You know, potentially do certain things where, you know, you’re gonna get your taxation specialists in to be talking about, you know, really in depth in terms of the business protection and all that kind of thing. Um, the examples, you know, giving us that thing to really go through a real world example, take us through a fact, find, you know, with a client and show us how we’d then spot things that we need to spot to be able to, to provide our advice. But I think, I think 35 hours is fine, to be honest. Uh, so while we do a cure, so 21 at least structured 35 in total, um, obviously all of it can be structured and it’s probably a lot more, but, and I think the thing is, is that people tend to do a lot more than the 35.

Kathryn:

We just don’t all necessarily write it down every single second of every day. Um, I think that we do lack a clear sort of set of engaging content to the wealth and pension space. So I speak to a lot of people in that space and obviously clearly there is that thing of, you know, world protection. And I think that they, they’ve learned a lot of what they need to know to be able to advise on protection, but then to actually get into the really in depth advice that starts to, I think, go maybe a little bit out of their mind because they’re so and naturally so focused on everything to do with pensions and investments. That for me, if someone is doing pensions and investments day in, day out, then they probably don’t have the full knowledge to be able to do the in-depth protection side of things.

Kathryn:

I mean, you could be completely disagree with me here. Why, um, just on the basis that, and obviously why is an exception to the will. Um, it’s just on the basis that there’s only so much that people can fit in their head, you know, ultimately, and there is only so much time in the day and there’s only so many resources. And you might have somebody who’s doing the fang like Roy does, but a lot of the time you do tend to find that you’ll have people in investments who are massively investments in pensions and then they’ll sign post out to others, which is fine. Um, but I think figure out in terms of c p D, figure out what you’re wanting to focus on. If you’re wanting to do protection, at least make sure that you’re doing the basics. If you don’t want to do it, do the basics, but then know that you’re gonna sign post out. I think that’s got to be some hopefully. Yeah, the good way to do it.

Setul:

<laugh> no, agreed. And and engaging is the key point there. Uh, I’m gonna spin off slightly cause there’s a provider we’re working with who we’re talking about business protection. And what they’re gonna do is they’re gonna invite people into the meeting room, but they are instantly gonna turn them into the board of directors. So these are seven people, small, medium size firm, you know, call from somebody over the weekend to say, oh, partner has passed away. Who is the chief executive or the managing director or the head of, of a certain position. So come on, people in the room, what are you gonna now do? Or we’re gonna tell the members of staff and we’re gonna do an email and we’re gonna do this, and we’re send flowers and all right, few weeks later, what are you gonna do? Oh, we’ve had a call from our top, um, distributor, you know, okay, two weeks later what’s happening? And you can see how that story that you live and breathe, and again, that brings it to life, to your point there, makes it interactive. And I would hope individuals would learn, because actually when you talk to people, you might get into the technicalities of it, but probably not at meeting one. Meeting one will always be bringing to life the concept. So yes, engaging C p D and that sounds excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s really good. Or did the, February is when it launches, so I can tell you how it goes thereafter. Absolut.

Roy:

Absolutely. I think, I think the other key with C P D, but just jumping quickly, is that it shouldn’t just be technical, it’s gotta be soft sales skills. It’s gotta be, you know, p people are scared about disturbance. Well, Catherine and I aren’t scared, scared about disturbance cuz we know how to have that conversation with a customer that they’re, they’re, they’re not alarmed and scared and worried and thinking, oh my God, what’s happening next? So I think that side of it is really, really important. And you know, those of us, again, who have been around a bit longer, we’re lucky enough to have started with direct sales forces. Um, and in fact some of the best protection people you meet, uh, strangely were part of a direct sales force. Now what happened there, they were trained and they were trained a lot on these, the, you know, the soft selling skills, the technical side, uh, you know, often is, is can be just 20% of the actual, actual piece of advice.

Roy:

I, you know, 80% of it could be the other side of it. Yet, yet are we doing that? Are we offering that? And I think because there aren’t, you know, with exception of probably one company, there’s yeah, not really that many training schools around maybe two companies. Um, uh, our plea I guess to the insurers would be to come out and help with, with, with that side of things as well. Um, it doesn’t help that a lot of insurers have abandoned BDMs. Um, I think that’s really sad. I think that’s where a lot of us learn our, our craft because you had, you know, your, your BDM coming in on a regular basis and you know, I I’ve heard the argument why BDMs have been taken away. I I’ve broadly disagree with it. I, I have to say, I think that was your, that was your conduit with the insurer. Um, so, um, may maybe that should, this needs to be re-looked at.

Setul:

Yeah. And and to your point, Catherine, earlier, two days, um, actually if you go back to the eighties and nineties, think about those direct Salesforce, it definitely wasn’t two days. Um, you know, uh, the history of our organization is Allied Dunbar and that was three weeks, um, minimum. So off you go, you’re in Swindon and, and it is a depth and breadth of training and that heavily included softwares and

Roy:

Sales. And if you didn’t pass exam, you couldn’t get out Swindon. So thats reason for passing

Setul:

Down. Absolutely. Sorry

Roy:

To, sorry to ask Swindon.

Setul:

<laugh>. Yeah, well look, um, I guess I got two questions and it would be remiss of me not to mention my favorite adage of writer or repair it. And lots of people talk about signpost in protection. But actually let me ask you both what you do the other way around, right? With consumer duty coming, it isn’t it’s sign, it’s a living, breathing, holistic backline review clients at every point across all areas. Do you signpost, and, and I know it’s different from both of you individually, but do you look for margin and wealth opportunities? Do you sign posts?

Kathryn:

Um, we do. So what we do is we, we definitely refer out for things like private medical insurance and obviously anything that’s not protection. Cause we don’t do anything protection wise. I think one of the key things for us is that we do look for it, but a lot of the time it’s a little bit out of our hands, I’ll be honest, because we have, you know, a good portion of our clients come from iFace and other firms. So we are limited because we can see things, but ultimately we’re only allowed based upon agreements and different things. We’re only allowed to talk about the protection side. Um, but we do, if we see softly the fact that obviously somebody has a mortgage a lot of the time though, I’ll have to say against our client base, what happens is people come to us when they’ve had a mortgage set up, the life insurance hasn’t gone through as they expected and they’ve come to us.

Kathryn:

So it’s, obviously we’ve got brand new mortgage there with everything that’s going on. We just usually sort of like step in and sort of like do the protection side of things. But yes, we do do that. The other thing that we do as well, and this is a process that we’ve started, um, within the last year or so, is that if somebody is paid a claim on a policy, um, we are giving details of trusted firms to them. So it’s like, especially like a life insurance claim, a critical illness claim, just to give them information, not passing the details of the client on 21, but giving them details of firms that we trust who can help them with those payouts. Cause ultimately we do talk about sign posting, especially in terms of getting protection, but what about the fact that somebody has just received 250 grand or something and they have no idea what to do with that.

Kathryn:

Yes, they think it’ll pay off the mortgage generally. That’s obviously a good route, but I imagine why and quite a few other wealth people would maybe think, well actually paying off the mortgage, is that the right thing to do kind of thing. You know, there’s, there’s a, there’s quite a lot of things there. So it isn’t, as with always, it isn’t just about the start, it’s about all the way through as well. So yeah, everybody, every situation we have wealth, we have people to point to pensions, private medical insurance, mortgages, anything like that. Um, and I mean, a big one for me that I tend to notice is, um, people coming to me for protection cover and I suddenly start to notice i h t issues and then I’ve got like a little bit of a fun moment then often with the iffa who’s come to me and I’m like, right, okay, are you doing something about that? Am I meant to be doing something about that? Have you got some magic that’s going on in the background that means that they’re not gonna have this i h t thing anymore and we have a bit of a chat in the background rather than doing it up front to the client because obviously it’s so complex at times, <laugh>. But uh, but yes, we certainly do have all that in place. That is what we preached

Setul:

Roy time close to yourself.

Kathryn:

My whole, my, my,

Roy:

My whole day is signposting, uh, uh, uh, you know, I I promise you I’m signposting consistently to mortgage people, private medical people, uh, wealth people. General insurance I think is one people forget about all the time. We signpost general insurance all the time. Uh, we signpost to lawyers, to banks, to uh, to HR specialists, to, you know, all sort of stuff. The one thing about signpost, and I think people really gotta understand this, yes, signpost for the protection community is, is people signpost into our community. But do you know, the best signpost that I’ve seen, uh, f for from many of people that I speak to in, in the industry is where signposting goes both ways. Okay? Reciprocation in our industry is the strongest f form of referral. And I think if you can do, uh, you know, what Catherine’s alluding to and say, right, I’m a protection specialist, so I’m inevitably getting pensions and mortgages and private medical and general insurance and all those sort of things in signpost out to someone, actually the flow of business will, will, will just, you know, consistently go both ways and you will build better relationships with those people.

Roy:

So we’ve gotta stop this signposting as being a one-way signpost. It’s, it’s a multiple signpost. Um, and, and the other, the other great thing about signposting is the loyalty of the customer. Um, time and time again. And I get, I hear this anecdotally all the time, you signpost to the right people who look after your clients in the right way. The client always remembers the signpost gonna invent a new word now, um, and uh, feels very happy and will come back and thank you for doing that signpost. So don’t underestimate the fact that you might not be doing the actual piece of advice, but the fact that you’ve been a conduit to signpost out to somebody, people do remember, which in turn gets you more business because clients talk to each other on a regular basis, as we all know, cuz we all work in referral based businesses. And if they say, well, is this fantastic person called Catherine and she sorted my PMI out, my pension out, my protection out my mortgage, out my RIN service out, we all know that Catherine’s done one or two of those things, but that’s not what a client thinks. The client’s perception is that Catherine’s done all of that. Okay? Then their friend family peer whatever’s gonna go, can I have Catherine Noel’s phone number please? So signposting perpetuates business. I I I I absolutely guarantee our listeners,

Kathryn:

I was getting really worried there that you were saying I was advising those areas for a second. I was thinking, no, I don’t do that. Why <laugh>? I

Roy:

Don’t do that

Kathryn:

<laugh>, I get what you mean. Now I get it. <laugh>.

Setul:

Um, let, let’s finish on a fun one, right? So you are both highly decorated advisors in the industry and, and I genuinely believe an advisor or a back office team member is doing a great job. We should all be recognizing the great things that go on within this industry. So no issues with awards and, and people going for them and so, and support, but what are your top tips for anybody? Um, well you, my top tip for anybody who’s wondering whether they should apply or not, I would say absolutely apply. But then when you get in front of the application form, you know, what are your tips based on what you’ve experienced? And I think you’ve both been, been judges as well as, uh, award winning. So go

Roy:

On judges, judges on the same panel as well.

Kathryn:

Yeah, that was a good debate, wasn’t it when we <laugh>? Yeah, that

Roy:

Was a good

Kathryn:

Debate. Yeah, <laugh>, but come on, they’re not winning. Well, they’re not winning <laugh>.

Setul:

And that does happen.

Kathryn:

It does, it certainly does for different reasons. Why Do you wanna take it first?

Roy:

Yeah, I, okay, so the the thing I would say is twofold. Firstly, please enter awards because it does make you feel good about some of the work that you do. And listen, it can be a bit of a lonely life out there sometimes doing some of the stuff, you know, we’re still a bit of a maligned industry. Let’s not make no bars about it. And I think, you know, some of those, some of that recognition will make you feel good about the industry that, that you’re in along with all the things we talked about earlier with claims, et cetera. But there is another reason for doing it, your customers, okay? What I’ve realized over the years, okay, and, and, and we’ve, we’ve been too modest, uh, with, with things that we’ve been lucky enough to, to win is they do find out, okay, and your customers feel good about the fact that their advisor has got an award, okay?

Roy:

Because they tell you it. Um, and also it helps with, again, the referral process because they go around and say, I’ve got an award ring an i i a or advisor, whatever it is. So I think, you know, it’s, it’s a good thing to do. It’s also a great way as Catherine and I, uh, the only reason we met is because we met at a conference. And these conferences tend to have awards at the same time. It’s a great same as you said, I I would’ve met you at a conference. It’s a great way of coming together. And, you know, we’re in a lucky world industry, broadly speaking, the protection industry firstly doesn’t, uh, compete with each other. Okay? Now how many other industries can say that? But secondly, we, we we’re part of a wonderful community. Yes. Um, and, and, and, and, and everyone gets on.

Roy:

You know, the vast majority of the time, the social media around our industry is broadly incredibly positive. When you talk to people in our industries, they, you know, have completely opposite situations and that, so I think, you know, it’s, it’s the awards alongside with coming to conferences and, and, and just, you know, coexisting along your fellow advisor. You will get, you will get a lot out of that. And if ever so often, you know, an accolade comes along, um, you know, it, it, it, it, it, it’s great for you. And also I think you made a very important point and you know, it, it was actually advisors that that first started this, and couple won’t mind me saying this, that the back office people was as important as, as, as the, the front of house. And we, uh, went on and on on about this.

Roy:

And lo and behold, six years ago, I think Catherine cover, uh, you know, started the, uh, the, the, the awards that they have for. So there’s very much, uh, you know, aimed at back office and Catherine and I both judge on those sort of awards. Okay. And those are in many ways the unsung heroes. And I think that that’s, that’s really important as well. So again, anyone listen to this who’s thinking, yeah, but I’m not an advisor. I’m not front of house, you know, there are awards there that you should be entering as well and, and, and, and go for it. You know, what, what, what have you got to lose?

Kathryn:

Absolutely. And for me it’s probably some practical tips from being someone who writes the entries and also judges them. Um, a couple of things is really make your word count work for you. Um, don’t say stuff or try and avoid as much possible stuff that everyone else is gonna be saying. So, you know, just saying, well I’ve been doing this and I’ve done that. You know, obviously I’ve been, I don’t know, I’ve been writing protection insurance for the last three years and I’m really proud of myself cause I’ve helped this many people. And dunno, yes, but don’t label on that for too long because everyone is gonna be saying the same things. You want to be doing something that’s unique and to make you really stand out because we’re all doing well. You know, everybody who’s getting especially into the shortlist, every single firm there deserves to be in that shortlist and they are doing well and they’ve done something that has really stood out to the judges.

Kathryn:

And what you need to do is make sure that you stand out the most. Um, a little pet peeve of mine is, and I’m sure a lot of people do this, write the entry in a different software to what it’s submitted on. If you are pasting it in to a website, make sure that the formatting still looks okay because if it’s not easy to read <laugh>, that’s immediately gonna not make the judges very eager to sort of want to, to sort of like read it too much. Um, I’d also say as well, you know, not just literally as the awards are happening, but maybe after the, just after the awards or after a conference or something, why not reach out to some of the previous judges? You know, there’s always a list of who the judges are and just say to ’em, look, I’m thinking of entering this award.

Kathryn:

What’s the kind of thing that stood out for you? Like when you were picking the winner? Was it the, the amount of people they’d covered? Was it like a certain claim story? What was it? Obviously each year it would be different and everybody will take a slightly different approach to it. Um, but, you know, get advice from people. I mean, if you’re gonna go straight to one of the award winners, they may not want to be telling you all their secrets as to what they’ve done to write an awarding entry. Um, but you know, the judges generally are really lovely, very open to having a chat with people and just say, you know, this tends to work well, this doesn’t tend to work well. Um, but you know, the quality, that’s it. The, the absolute key thing for me is to make that word count work for you. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is doing.

Setul:

Brilliant, thank you. And that, that point around the copy and pasting into the website is so easily missed. I can imagine lots of bit missed that. So a great one, <laugh>.

Kathryn:

Oh definitely. It’s just some fun with bullet points sometimes and you’re like, oh no, no, you didn’t check before you hit submit <laugh>.

Setul:

Well that, that’s been a whirlwind. I have really enjoyed just being able to hear both of you answer the questions. Cuz again, as I listened to some of the previous podcasts, I’m sort of saying, I wonder what, wonder what would think I’ve had the chance to hear firsthand for those. So thank you both and I hand back the reigns to you both. It’s been a wonderful experience.

Kathryn:

Thank you, settle. It’s been absolutely lovely having you on as a guest host. It’s been, and

Roy:

It’s been really cool. It’s been quite surreal, <laugh> quite surreal as well. So, uh, that, uh, yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. Settle. It’s, uh, it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s just good. I think this goes right to what we said at the start, you know, everyone needs to talk, uh, but keep talking in this industry because that’s where, how, how people learn. So, uh, yeah. Thank you very much.

Kathryn:

Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. Thank you. And, uh, maybe we’ll do it again sometime, maybe start like a, an annual recap of what’s been happening or something like that. <laugh>, next time I’m gonna have Matt van back with me. We’re we’re talking about family history and protection insurance. That was a request from you settle. So it’s come in and it’s coming quite nicely after, after you’ve done this with us. If you’d like a reminder of the next step, so please drop me a message on social media or visit the website, practical hyphen protection dot code uk. And don’t forget as always that if you’ve listened to this as part of your work, you can claim a d certificate on the website too. Thanks to our sponsors, the Optum members. Thank you both. Speak soon.