Practical Protection

Practical Protection

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Episode 8 – Vulnerable Clients

Hi, everyone! As I am sure you can imagine I am always looking for ideas about what to cover in the podcast. We’ve done lots on health conditions, I’ve done deep dives into insurance products, commented on market developments, but I was absolutely shocked to realise I have not done a specific episode of vulnerable clients.

Most of you probably recognise my name as a specialist protection insurance adviser and really specifically someone that helps people with higher health risks. I’ve often spoken about the needs of vulnerable clients and been involved in multiple industry events for this topic. I’ve even won an award or two.

So it seems silly that I have not covered this before and I am going to make sure that I give you as many tips as I can during the episode.

The key takeaways:

  • Examples of common vulnerabilities
  • Guidance on how to build a vulnerable client register
  • Ways to support your clients and your employees/colleagues when discussing vulnerable situations

Vulnerability is very subjective and it can also change over time. Sometimes people can think, well we’ve never come across this before and we will just handle it if it happens. Which you can do, but it is much easier if you have a clear structured process in place. Your clients and your colleagues will thank you for it.

Next time Alan Knowles will be back with me and we will be deep diving into fatty liver disease.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

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Kathryn Knowles  00:10

Hi everyone. I am back, and I’m going to be talking with you about vulnerable clients and some of the ways that you can effectively support them. This is the practical protection

 

Kathryn Knowles  00:33

podcast, so I think it’s important to start off this episode talking about the fact that client vulnerability is very subjective, and I say subjective, and there’s probably a lot of people who would say, No, it isn’t, but it really, really can be. So at Cura, we speak to people every day that have high risk situations, and a lot of firms would probably consider most of our clients to be vulnerable, but we don’t necessarily customers vulnerable and vice versa, because it’s whether or not you kind of do like blanket statements for different situations as to whether or not someone is vulnerable or not, and I will go into examples of this, so just bear with me. But the key thing is, is to just have a very clear set of rules or guidance as to what a vulnerable client means to you and to your firm, and for this to be aligned with some kind of industry standards, there are some really specific vulnerable client monitoring and reporting systems that you can sign up for which might be very, very beneficial to you. It’s definitely worth checking them out.

 

At Cura, I’ve built our own vulnerable client monitoring and reporting system, just because everything I’ve looked at so far doesn’t really fit completely with our clients and the information that we need. And I’ll explain that again, just a little bit more on the basis that, you know, sometimes with client vulnerability, we need to ask questions and we need information, but we also need to be very, very careful of things like data protection. We’re not meant to ask things that aren’t relevant for our role and for our clients. And I think sometimes with some vulnerable client systems, obviously they are, they’re brilliant, but they very broadly fit lots of different types of financial advisory firms or different financial just institutions anyway, and obviously, for myself as a cure, we are just a protection insurance firm. So there’s quite a few things that we wouldn’t need to know about somebody in order to give them advice or to give them the correct product for their needs. So we just need to be really mindful of what it is that our customers need, the exact information that we need about them to do our job, and just to make sure that we are obviously supporting them as best as possible.

 

So I’m gonna be chatting about some example vulnerabilities and responses to them kind of what we would consider a vulnerable client register and ways to protect you and your colleagues as well. I have to say, I’m going to do a little bit of tooting my own horn here, but I have actually won awards for my vulnerable client system and processes. So hopefully you agree that what I do sounds good. So key thing is as well, ultimately you must go by what your compliance officer says for you to do. Okay. So I can suggest all of these things, but ultimately, you must go by what your systems and your rules are said to you, and especially if they do suggest different to what I’m suggesting here. Do feel free to ask them, or Kathryn suggested this, and why don’t we do that? And I’m sure they’ll have good reasons. It might be actually that they add something new in which could be a really good thing. But yeah, I give advice and give pointers, but always go by what your regulatory systems are telling you for your specific firm.

 

So some example of vulnerabilities. I’m not going to be able to go through every single vulnerability that we might come across with a client, because there is just not enough time in the day, really. And also, as I say, it’s different depending upon what you are looking at. So I’ve tried to go through the ones that I see is as the key areas that we might find, especially in protection insurance, but also other areas such as mortgage advice and pension and investment planning, things like that, just so that we can have, like, a general idea and some of these suggestions, or some of these vulnerabilities can be likened to others, so you can always broadly sidestep some of these suggestions to other areas as well.

 

So really key one that we come across, and that is often put forward, is communication barriers. And often that is said is English as a second language. Obviously, we have many. Communities and different cultures in the UK. And there are plenty of times where people do have English as their second language now, or they might not even speak English at all. And it’s really tricky when I say about being subjective, because, you know, there are different levels of English as a second language. So, and I’m very, very aware of this, because my sister lives in Italy, and she’s a fluent Italian speaker, and she teaches English as a second language to Italian students. She’s lived there 15 years. She’s a Italian citizen. She absolutely aced all of her exams in terms of understanding Italian, speaking Italian, everything like that. But there is still times it shall say, oh, you know, there’s the odd word that still confuses me sometimes, but I suppose we get that in our own native language as well. But you kind of think, well, what does what does that mean when you say English as a second language? And that is say comes down to that subjectiveness. And sometimes it might be that you decide right anybody with English as a Second Language room automatically going to class as vulnerable. It might be that you class it as more that if there’s a translator that needs to be involved, that that’s when you class as a vulnerability. But we’ll, we’ll talk a bit more about that.

 

Other communication barriers are things like blindness, and that is from the reason of not being able to read the materials that come from the insurers or from other institutions you might be doing financial advice with, because a lot of them do not come with any kind of alternatives that would support somebody that is blind. Some do, but not a lot of them. It’s very interesting to know that Braille is actually not necessarily the common language for people that are blind. It can be, obviously, very useful, but it’s not the it’s not the absolute So again, we’ll talk a bit about that. We’ve got things like deafness, and people might think, well, if they’re deaf, then, you know, we can go by email or, you know, lip reading, which you know is a potential but you’ve also got to bear in mind that for some people that are deaf, English is their second language, because British Sign Language is their first language, and it is different to English, so which can still make it quite tricky over Email. I mean by lip reading.

 

We’ve got things like inability to sign paper documents. Some insurers still require paper documents and signatures, which, you know, really we should hope that they’re encouraging them to, sort of like, move into the modern world and start getting towards more the electronic side of things. In an easy electronic system, it is so so hard, because there is electronic systems and then there’s electronic systems. So we want to make sure that we have easy electronic systems as much as possible. But again, I’ll give some guidance. We have things like dyslexia, dyscalculia, things like autism, potentially Down syndrome as well. All of these would fall into communication barriers. We then have things like mental health as well. So common ones that will maybe be seen as vulnerability is suicidal thoughts or attempts self harm, something known as eupd, which is emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression might even have grief would be possibly in there as well.

 

We have cognitive issues such as confusion, forgetting parts of conversations, health conditions, so some firms with class cancer as a vulnerability. Now, again, it’s subjective, so we’re going to go through why I’m saying subjective, but we have things like HIV and paraplegia would be conditions that some firms might say are vulnerable. We’ve got things that we see to benefits, so Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment. There’s also life events as well, so recent bereavement or going through a divorce, potentially even a long term absence from work because you’ve been ill, and things like emerging vulnerabilities as well. So it’s important to understand that vulnerabilities can change. So you might speak to somebody one year and they’re not vulnerable the next year, they might be or they might have been vulnerable last year, but this year they’re not vulnerable. But we also have things like when we’re doing in protection world, we have things like GP reports, and we might suddenly have a vulnerability emerging sense of maybe if there’s quite excessive alcohol consumption, or maybe there’s been a mention of gambling in that GP report as well, all things that can ultimately alter the options from the insurer.

 

We then also say all of these are kind of example vulnerabilities, but also potential vulnerabilities. So other potential vulnerabilities are things like going on maternity or paternity leave. So I’m just going to take a sip of water because my throat is little sore. So we’ve got a say, you know, the maternity, paternity leave side of things, because that will potentially very. Much so more usually more on the maternity side of things eventually affect pay and income, because we might then be looking at reduced hours going forward. Not saying That’s definite, but we might be things like a potential redundancy. Do you class on a potential redundancy as vulnerable now because it’s a potential or do you wait until they’re actually made redundant? If that does happen, we have reintegration to work after periods of absence. That’s quite a vulnerable time as well. There’s lots of differences that are happening, lots of changes in terms of income and where it’s coming from, and potentially lots of stress.

 

Kathryn Knowles  10:36

And what we need to be really careful about is looking at these vulnerabilities and potential vulnerabilities, and trying to understand, well, where does a vulnerability exist? Where do we do need to have, at some point, some kind of system that has like a tick box in some ways, to say this person is definitely vulnerable. This person isn’t. But even talking about some of these things here, some of these things would absolutely have an influence on protection insurance. So I said there about the, you know, potentially a GP report that says that someone’s having quite excessive alcohol. Well, yeah, that would really affect the outcomes on Protection Insurance Application. But what happens if you just work in pensions or investments? Why that wouldn’t even come up in your conversations? Because why would it? So they would come to me and I would be saying, right? I need to mark this person as vulnerable, but in your systems, there wouldn’t be which is why I say it’s so subjective, and we do need to be very mindful. Because again, so this does happen. Obviously, I get lots of people introducing clients to us at Cura, and maybe something like this will happen. And then we need to have a conversation, because it’s case of, right, okay, the vulnerable client to us, but this introducer doesn’t know anything about this. So then we need to have that I say that conversation to say right to the client, are you okay with us discussing this everything with your financial advisor? Because as the financial advisor, you do not need to know that if you’re working in the pensions and investment space in terms of what you are doing to achieve what you need to achieve for them, there is arguments that you should know about it, because it could obviously influence decisions, absolutely but at no point, if you haven’t brought them to me, would you know about it. So that kind of ends up meaning that you have data that you don’t need. So we just need to all be very, very careful as to how we discuss these things.

 

So let’s have a little look at the types of safeguards that we would put in place for these different situations. Like I said, I’m not doing every single vulnerability known to man, but I will go through the ones I’ve mentioned. So English is a second language, so really key thing here, especially if you’re working on like a signposting kind of situation, which you know, we certainly do. We have quite a lot of advisory users where they’re from a different country originally, they’ve now come to the UK. They may be speaking to people from a same community where they all obviously speak their natural first language, and they’re brought to us now in that situation, and in many this is kind of like a broad rule across a lot of different companies, is that the introducer cannot be the translator. And the reason for that is that we need to make sure, well, everybody, it’s kind of like a safeguard for the firm as well as for the clients, is it needs to be very clear that the introducer isn’t doing anything and suggesting anything or encouraging anything that doesn’t match what is actually needed. Now I’m not saying that anybody would be doing that, you know, I’m certainly not saying that, but that is part of the concern around it, is that, you know, if you rely on someone to be that translator who is an introducer, you know, it’s, it’s quite hard, because you yourself, you can’t then understand and hear what’s being said. Because, you know, obviously, for myself, I barely speak a second language. I can get by a little bit with French, German and Italian, but absolutely not in conversation. I can just make out the odd words. And so when I need my sister to be honest, because she just speaks everything. But you know, if you are the if you are the primary advisor, with myself, and I’m speaking to some of the different language, then you know, I’m making sure that, as with anything, that those key features are being understood, that I’m speaking to that person, that we are really being clear about it. And you might wonder how we’re doing that, but bear with me.

 

Whereas, obviously, if there’s another introduction, another introducer in place, how am I checking Exactly? Because that conversation is kind of happening without me, which isn’t what you want to happen. So what you can do is you would usually use a close family member or maybe even a close friend to act Alan. As a translator. It’s a bit tricky to sort of say, Well, why is that better than having the introducer do it? And in some ways, it isn’t necessarily that much difference. And in some ways, maybe having the advisor do it will be better, because they understand these things and understand the terminology, but it’s making sure that you are speaking to somebody who is close to that person whose best interests is the client, and that they understood what’s happened. So if there is any confusion going forward at all, that the client has something to speak to who’s been there and has been involved in that conversation and does know what’s been said and being done. Now when I say it must be a close family member or close friend, based upon my rules with my team, and you also need to look out for Alan bells. So let’s say somebody comes to us, and we’ve certainly had this I’m not when I use these examples, I’m not talking about, you know, just random ones. It’s all things that I’ve come across. So let’s say that you have somebody in their 60s, and their parent is in their 80s. They’ve lived in the UK, obviously, for many, many years, but the parents in their 80s doesn’t speak any English at all, and the child is wanting you to insure them for 2 million pounds worth of life insurance. They say, I’ll be the translator, and you can’t see any need for 2 million pounds worth of life insurance. That’s when your alarm bells need to go off and go, do you know what? Actually, no, this isn’t right. You know, just go back to your basics. What is the insurance need.

 

And if need be, as we will say, in many situations, you walk away and you do not do the advice. If you really do are concerned that there is something there that isn’t, shouldn’t be as it is. You might also have this in the same situation. You could have somebody who can’t communicate because they’ve had a stroke. You might have somebody who is living with autism who can’t communicate. And I will talk a bit more about that, as to what we might or might not do in that situation. Because, again, people might go, Well, what’s in trouble? Interest? Well, bear with me as we get there. So if somebody is blind, you can offer to do audio recordings of your recommendation. Record the meetings, make sure to send them to them for reference. And I think a really key thing here, as well, as I will say, with most of these things, is ask them, what do they want? You know that if they are blind, they are very familiar with living in a world where, unfortunately, there’s lots of situations where things aren’t accessible. So what works for them? Just check with them.

 

Same for deafness. So, so if somebody is deaf, it might well be that they’re very happy to speak by email, to lip read to obviously, do your video calls with them if you can’t meet them in person. But if they can’t do that, there is a good idea to try and find somebody who has, well, who can speak British Sign Language. There are some advisors. There’s not many, but there are some advisors in the UK who can speak British Sign Language. So if you can do, just get them, see if they’re available. Brilliant. You do also have now, at the time of recording it’s available, Zurich also do have a link to British Sign Language interpreters. Obviously that does mean that it is more of a Zurich based conversation, but at the same point, if it means that the person can obviously speak and be properly listened to and and be able to communicate effectively, then it’s certainly worthwhile making them aware that that is an option for them if they want to do that. And again, you might even have somebody with them who is going to be a translator. They might have a translator themselves that they want to bring to the meeting, or they might have a family member who is able to hear and can do the communication for you both. But again, just remain with that vigilance in terms of being able to double check what is being asked for and does it match what the person needs.

 

The inability to sign documents, as always, I will just keep saying and encouraging insurers to make an easy online process for clients across their different documents and things like that. It is mainly more to do with trusts. And obviously, trusts are an essential part of so many situations. So and I have to say, as well, make the trust easy. It’s so easy if we can just put the details in online, rather than having to get everyone to sign up to 5 million different things to be able to do it. But I digress. So if it is an insurer that does require paper signatures, wet signatures, speak with them and establish what they will accept instead of a signature, because ultimately, you might have somebody who cannot write down their signature, that doesn’t mean that they are so ill in terms of their risk their health, that they can’t have insurance. So I’m gonna say I’m gonna automatically default to staying insurance, because it is what I work in but ultimately it doesn’t mean that they can’t have insurance. Yes, so they should be able to still access the full service. So what will the insurer accept instead? You know, maybe we could do it where the person could speak via audio and say that, or someone could sign in proxy for them, possibly more likely that, if there’s a lasting power of attorney. But let’s just see, just basically that one. You just have to speak to the insurer and see what they’ll do dyslexia.

 

Kathryn Knowles  20:26

So there’s a couple of things with dyslexia, and actually, lots of people dyslexia don’t tend to go towards insurance too much because of the amount of reading and documents that are required, usually. So it’s important that we do try and get the the message out there that it isn’t necessarily, you know, massive documents like it used to be and but you can do stuff like, if you look on the QA website, we have a software on there called Recite Me. And it means that people who are dyslexic can change the all the web pages to any kind of color scheme or font or size that they need, which is really, really useful. It also translates into hundreds of languages, which, again, is really useful. You’re also doing the thing with the other communication barrier too, but it could be, again, you know, can you do audio recommendations for them rather than doing it written out? Or do they have a specific color scheme that’s important to them and potentially adapt the documents to match that. My middle child has just been diagnosed as dyslexic, and one of the things that we have for him now is specific glasses that are green so that that just helps solve what he needs. So it might just be that there needs to be a certain change in the way that you print out the documents for the clients. They might even just have the readers. There’s certain things that they can have on their own computer which might just do it so there isn’t any need. But I think a really key thing as well dyslexia, which is really interesting, is that for all of us, it won’t necessarily come up in our questions. It doesn’t come up in protection insurance questions or anything like that, unless it was something to do with a very recent diagnosis, which would just be a case of, have you seen a specialist at some point recently? So you might not even know.

 

The same comes with dyscalculia. So dyscalculia is a condition that really causes difficulty in understanding numbers and finances, especially, so it’s really important to make sure that the person understands what’s being arranged, how the premium is going to work, what that will mean to their budget. You know, if need be, if you’re doing insurance to cover a mortgage, ask to see a copy of the mortgage offer, which is good practice for any client, really. But then at least you can make sure that the numbers aren’t getting confused, and that you have the everything in front of you as it should be. You know, keep the math side as simple as possible. Possibly use diagrams if need be. But again, just ask them what works for them.

 

On the autumn side of things, we do get things where parents will come to us asking for life insurance for their adult child, maybe because they’re in care and they want to they want to communicate now every firm to their own, we can potentially do that if there is a lasting power of attorney. What I would strongly advocate is that you wouldn’t do any form of financial advice or support unless there’s a lasting power of attorney in that position. Because even though they are the child of the obviously the parents, once they are an adult, there does need to be a lasting power of attorney in place to properly act on their behalf. We would then, if that was there, we would then set a limit on what we would do. So as an example, we would potentially do funeral cover, and that would be something that we would be comfortable to arrange. But again, going back to basics of what’s the insurable interest the funeral cover, there is a there is an insurable interest there. We’ve been asked before, can you set up life insurance to cover our loss of carer benefits if they pass away for us as a firm that was an absolute no, that would not be something that we would advocate for in terms of, ultimately, the person, the adult child with autism, is our client in that instance, and that would actually potentially put them at risk. So we are putting in some safeguards there for that person’s obviously, safety, but we would then also change the conversation, and it is important to look at this is sort of asking for the parents, what insurance did they have so that if something happens to them, what support is going to be in place for that adult child that needs help.

 

Mental health. Really key things are, when was it? You know, people might say, attempt, like, that’s it vulnerable clients. But if it was 15 years ago, that wouldn’t really be classed as vulnerable to me, especially. But again, this is it comes down to that subjective side of things. So for for ourselves at Cure, we would class probably a suicide attempt in the last. Year was vulnerable, and we would it doesn’t necessarily change our approach because of the options that we would have for the client in that circumstance, but it just means that we are a bit more alert to the fact that there has been a stronger mental health event within the last 12 months. You do have things like the eupd depression. Again, it’s very, very subjective, because people can have these conditions and be working, have a mortgage, have a family just be carrying on with their life exactly as you would expect. And then there’s other people with those conditions who would be unable to work and who find it very, very hard to do day to day tasks.

 

So you need to establish in your own firm what classifies as vulnerable when it comes to mental health. And do bear in mind, if you say that about anybody, most people have had some kind of stress at some point or felt a bit anxious at different times. It is very you know, feeling a bit of stress, feeling bit anxious is very different to having stress and being having an anxiety disorder. But again, you need to be clear for yourself, for your clients and also for colleagues as well. In terms of the cognitive side of things. I was mentioning about the confusion, potentially, if you’ve noticed that misunderstanding things, wanting to we go over things more than you would expect, you might just want to sensitively ask if there’s a close family member or friend that can join the conversation.

 

Moving on to cancer, vulnerability for cancer massively depends. Is it active cancer? If it is active cancer, I would definitely mark them as vulnerable, terminal cancer. Absolutely it is a clear vulnerability. But there’s also cancer in the past. So when do you classify that, if it was cancer in the last two years, would that be vulnerable last five years? Then you’ve got, what about cancer of a loved one, so a partner, a child or a friend, if they pass away, what does this mean for the clients? Does that mean that they’re financially vulnerable if this person passes away, are they making a knee jerk reaction in getting insurance because of someone having a diagnosis? And is that something we need to be mindful of too, is not making those rash decisions because of something that’s really scared them? It’s obviously, it’s important very much support them, and yes, to do the insurance, but to make sure that it is something that’s been done because, not out of fear, in a sense, we want to make sure that they’re that they’re okay and in the right headspace to make that decision to sign up for for the insurance.

 

We have HIV now this, again, is a depends one. Somebody living with HIV is not generally considered to be vulnerable in terms of medications and treatments. I’ve done, obviously, podcasts on this before, there is no reason why somebody living with HIV who is effectively medicated would be considered to be vulnerable. There are things that absolutely can be a vulnerability, such as there can be some linked conditions that could potentially mean that there is a vulnerability there. You might also want to consider it as a vulnerability in terms of a flag in your system for if the GP does not know about the diagnosis, because that means that they could become incredibly vulnerable if that diagnosis is told to the GP. I have given guidance on this before. Please do listen to the HIV podcast to hear about what you can do in that situation to support people properly.

 

Paraplegia as an example, it depends so somebody would say, yes, someone who’s paraplegic is vulnerable. Obviously. They don’t have use of their legs. They’re probably in the wheelchair most of the time, and in insurance, you know that can have implications, in a sense, that can be seen as potentially a higher risk. Some people who are paraplegic are vulnerable. Some absolutely are not. So don’t make assumptions. You’re going to have to really check it each time somebody who’s receiving Universal Credit. Just be very mindful of the budget for the policies that you recommend. You know it’s very unlikely that a policy over 100 pound per month is going to be affordable, so just make sure that you are looking at the full picture when you are going to be building that recommendation for them.

 

Pip, performance, personal independence payments. There we go. I was thinking of something else more HR related then, and it is really, really hard to receive personal independence payments. It’s not an easy thing to get. You must be really, really ill to get the benefit. So do class them as vulnerable. But also bear in mind, especially if you’re working in protection insurance, what that means in the grand scheme of things, because, and again, we’ve certainly had this where people have come to us and have said, I’m in receipt of PIP or DLA, which it used to be called, and then they’ll say, oh, and I’ve got this medical condition, but it doesn’t really affect me. I’m not really it doesn’t bother me. I’m at. Absolutely fine. That doesn’t match up, unfortunately, and I’m sorry for saying it so bluntly, but it doesn’t match up you a condition can’t barely affect you in the instance of needing and wanting insurance, but then at the same point, be so bad that you are in receipt of PIP,

 

Kathryn Knowles  30:20

and that will eventually be something that alters the the recommendation, because of the fact that it’s very, very likely in the GP record that that person is in receipt of PIP is very likely to have the written details from the person as to why they are in need of PIP, and the scoring that they were given for the different aspects of that, whether or not it’s to do with the personal or the mobility side of things, and and the insurers, obviously, if it’s in the GP record, that is going to be something that they take into account, because that is what’s on record. So it’s very, very unlikely that the condition is mild. So just be mindful of that. If you are looking at an option for somebody bereavement, make sure you give them time. Be patient. Be conscious of asking any questions that could be triggering, especially in the application. You know, if they’ve just had a partner that has passed away due to terminal cancer, then obviously the questions about cancer could be quite triggering and be very alert against any kind of knee jerk reactions to things divorce.

 

This is a really, really key area for vulnerability, especially for economic abuse. One things to try and do is to try and maybe split existing cover, if possible and relevant to their situation. It does mean, if you can do that, that ideally the premiums will still be lower than if you did something new. If there’s been any changes to health, then hopefully there won’t be any implications to that, to the price or even eligibility for the product. This is the prime time, though, for things like direct debit to be regularly canceled and reset as a form of control. So what that means is that somebody might cancel the direct debit. So then there’s that constant thing of maybe software between a month three month of the insurer getting in touch saying you need to pay. You need to pay. You need to pay, to keep this policy, not in a pushy way, but just saying, Tom, you do realize this is going to cancel, then suddenly it’s reset again, just in time to then be canceled again. And it’s a form of, say, control and obviously, stress and unpleasantness for somebody, you might need to think about completely redoing the cover if there’s not going to be an amicable conversation about changing the trusts, there’s also as well, if it could be, and this can happen where maybe one party is not allowed to know the other person’s new contact details, where they live, anything like that. And again, that can make it quite tricky if you were to try and change the trust, because especially if it’s ones where the insurers require us to paper forms, there’s going to be lots of toing and throwing to try and make sure that, without any shadow of a doubt that there, that there’s no cross information in terms of addresses.

 

Redundancy obviously provide as much support as possible signpost to support services that they have with their insurances. You know, there can be some really, really key beneficial priority benefits there, if need be, maybe try to reduce the cover rather than canceling it, just so that they don’t miss out on everything completely. But you do just need to be very, very mindful of for some people, they just simply will have to cancel the cover, which is such a shame, but it can happen with the long term absence from work, this is a really interesting one in terms of vulnerability, because obviously long term absence from work can absolutely mean that somebody is vulnerable and financially, but they might have had IP in place, hopefully, so maybe they’re not too financially vulnerable. But it might be as well that you might be thinking, oh, right, well, we can’t really do this or that, but it might be that they were in such a specialist job that they just can’t do it any longer, because, like, something small has happened, but it doesn’t make them vulnerable.

 

Maybe something big has happened, which, you know, is quite big, but isn’t necessarily vulnerable, vulnerable to stop them getting things like the insurances. So a really good example there would be somebody like a pilot, a highly specialist will must be at the peak of health. Let’s say something happens and they become blind. Well, they’re not going to be able to continue to be a pilot. And yes, blindness in itself can be a vulnerability, but it shouldn’t stop being able to get the insurance. I say that with a caveat of it does depend upon the reason for going blind, but that’s just to give an example

 

Alcohol in the GP report, I mentioned that so really sensitive to discuss the alcohol levels, because this is an area that actually people can get quite defensive over, and they can feel quite judged about their alcohol consumption. Some people don’t mind, and they laugh it off, you know, but some people can feel quite. Quite personally, kind of attacked in some ways, by being told that maybe the insurers are saying that they are drinking too much. So all you can do with that is essentially discuss the options and see what they want to do. Do they want to carry on? Do they not want to carry on? Do they want to try somewhere else? And gambling? If that comes up in the GP report, again, it is something that would change the insurers indications, because, again, it’s a sensitive conversation, because of the fact that, and if they’re asking about it, ultimately, you know, gambling would be seen, you know, gambling to the level that is mentioned in a GP report would probably be seen as being excessive. It’d be seen as potentially an addiction, which would be seen as a mental health condition. And that’s not again to say that insurance isn’t necessarily available. We just might need to change approach.

 

But you just need to know how to have those sensitive conversations to approach as to why the insurers maybe change things. And so vulnerable client register. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you too much longer, because I know I’ve been chatting quite a while about all this. So we vulnerable client register. It doesn’t need to be anything super intense, you know, it can be simply a spreadsheet, and it can have in it the data vulnerability. Who noticed it, who’s reviewed it, what the vulnerability was, what actions have been taken, and it’s a really good idea to have a specific person to review them, and then obviously a backup person, in case, they’re the person who notices the vulnerability. If you can have some kind of internal system that can flag that to each other, which is, unfortunately something that we do have in cure, because I do get this sorry sent to me quite a bit, and it might end up being that someone says, I think this person’s vulnerable. And actually think, you know what? Actually, thinks, you know what? Actually, I think it’s okay. It might be yes, this person is vulnerable, and we need to do X, Y, Z, and it can be a good idea to have somebody trained in a First Aider training course.

 

So you’ve got the M HFA England, Mental Health Foundation England offer First Aider training courses, and you get a certificate there, and they are really, really good to six, it gives you a really good idea as to what to do, because, as well, it’s something I haven’t mentioned. As well as vulnerable clients, somebody making a claim, you know, as soon as somebody’s making a claim, they’re vulnerable because they’re needing to have the support of the insurance, or something’s happened as a life event of some sort that is linked to that. So just be super, super careful of that too.

 

We then have, what I would quite like to suggest as well, is something that we’re trying to integrate into Cura. And you come into our new client management system is what’s known as a big V in a little v. And this was suggested to somebody, to Alan, by somebody, and I think I will say, I think it was Meg Kirby, so if it is, was Meg, thank you. It was Thank you. It was a really, really amazing suggestion and a big thing, and it’ll be because, like we said, you know, a suicide attempt, you know, would be in the last 12 months. Would, I would cast that as a big V, you know, that is, yes, somebody is vulnerable. They’ve had a serious mental health event in the last 12 months. But somebody who had suicidal thoughts nine months ago, I’d probably class that as a for me, as a little V because they’ve clearly had some mental health it was nine months ago. There’s been no for this person. There’s been no actions on it, there’s been no plans. There’s just been a fleeting thought. I don’t think that they’re the same level of vulnerability. There’s a scale, as with many things, there’s a scale.

 

Kathryn Knowles  38:26

And things for you to do, the last things to sort of think about is protecting employees and colleagues. So this is so so important, because we do so much, and I’ve said this for years now, that vulnerability is something that you know, we really obviously, rightfully think so much about clients, but people aren’t thinking enough about the advisors and what we might experience. Because I know that obviously at Cura, we are one of the go to firms where, you know, we are known for speaking to people in very high risk situations, especially with medical conditions and mental health. And you can get some people who barely tell you anything, and you get some people who will go through very specific details of their life events which led to different situations that can be very, very triggering. And even if you don’t have mental health yourself, it can just be very, very upsetting.

 

You know, we’ve certainly had it where we have had multiple people say to us that they want us to arrange life insurance, because they have just bluntly said they will at some point take their life and they want the insurance in place for their family. That is really hard to hear when you’re having a conversation with somebody, or maybe even somebody that you’ve built a rapport with up over a few periods of like time, over meetings and to hear that, and it can be very upsetting. And as well, you know, if they have children, you’ve children yourself, it really, kind of, it really, kind of can hit you.

 

So I originally heard about this from the Red Arc nurses years ago. Absolutely amazing people, I will always say that. And so what we have at Cure is we have little red flags on our desks and very, very strict rules about them. So basically, if somebody is worried about a client’s safety, or if they are personally struggling with a conversation, they can wave their red flag high in the air. And we also have an internal messaging system, a bit like a whatsapp type thing. It’s not WhatsApp, it’s a very secure system where we have a specific SOS channel for remote workers to alert us as well. So basically, if the SOS channel pings or the red flag goes up, whoever, and this is anyone in the company who is not currently engaged with a client, will stop their work, and they will go to the SOS channel to ask what’s happening and what’s needed.

 

Generally, that will be that a manager needs to take over. It might be that we take over the call to establish the client safety and determine next steps. It might be that we need to say to the employee right once off the phone, here’s a massive hug, here’s a cup of tea, go for a walk. Or it might be that they need to head home after the call and just take some time to process what they’ve heard. Many of us at Cura have done the first aid of training, and there has been quite a few of us, and myself, as I say, I speak to a lot of people with mental health conditions in many, many intense situations. And there is times, you know, there was, I remember very distinctly. There was one time I’d messaged into our SOS channel and just said, I’m going to need a minute after this. And I went into the back office, and Alan, my husband and CO MD, came in with me. And I’m not someone who cries generally, and I absolutely sobbed after hearing what this person had been through. I just I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and he just cuddled me. And I know you can’t always do that with everybody, but that’s what I needed. And Alan, you know, has certainly had it as well, where he’s had a call and afterwards he’s he struggled. He’s had to go out for a walk, you know, he’s again, he’s potentially had a cry, because it can really, really hit you.

 

And what’s important when I’m saying this, is that you might think that this might not happen to you because of the nature of the nature of the clients you speak to, or the nature of the business that you do, but it is better to be prepared and to know what to happen in that situation, so that everyone knows rather than for it to happen and for you not know What to do, and your colleagues will certainly appreciate it if that was the case, if you had everything ready, right? So that is my quick kind of go over. Say quick. I apologize it probably wasn’t quick go over of vulnerable clients, and what we would do to support them, look after ourselves as well. Thank you so much for listening everybody I say there are more vulnerabilities than what I’ve discussed today, but hopefully with most of the things I’ve said here, you can at least use some kind of side tangent thinking, Well, that could maybe be useful here next time Alan is going to be back with me and we are going to be deep, diving into fatty liver disease. And what that means, protection insurance, please do visit the website. Practical. Hyphen protection.co.uk. To listen to the other episodes and to get your CPD certificate. And a big thanks to Planet X, Planet X, Planet X, for their sponsorship of the podcast so that you can get those amazing CPD certificates. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye.

Transcript Disclaimer:

Episodes of the Practical Protection Podcast include a transcript of the episode’s audio. The text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record.

We often discuss health and medical conditions in relation to protection insurance and underwriting, always consult with a healthcare professional if you are concerned about any medical conditions and symptoms we have covered in any episode.

Episode 8 - Vulnerable Clients

Hi, everyone! As I am sure you can imagine I am always looking for ideas about what to cover in the podcast. We’ve done lots on health conditions, I’ve done deep dives into insurance products, commented on market developments, but I was absolutely shocked to realise I have not done a specific episode of vulnerable clients.

Most of you probably recognise my name as a specialist protection insurance adviser and really specifically someone that helps people with higher health risks. I’ve often spoken about the needs of vulnerable clients and been involved in multiple industry events for this topic. I’ve even won an award or two.

So it seems silly that I have not covered this before and I am going to make sure that I give you as many tips as I can during the episode.

The key takeaways:

  • Examples of common vulnerabilities
  • Guidance on how to build a vulnerable client register
  • Ways to support your clients and your employees/colleagues when discussing vulnerable situations

Vulnerability is very subjective and it can also change over time. Sometimes people can think, well we’ve never come across this before and we will just handle it if it happens. Which you can do, but it is much easier if you have a clear structured process in place. Your clients and your colleagues will thank you for it.

Next time Alan Knowles will be back with me and we will be deep diving into fatty liver disease.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

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Kathryn Knowles  00:10

Hi everyone. I am back, and I'm going to be talking with you about vulnerable clients and some of the ways that you can effectively support them. This is the practical protection

 

Kathryn Knowles  00:33

podcast, so I think it's important to start off this episode talking about the fact that client vulnerability is very subjective, and I say subjective, and there's probably a lot of people who would say, No, it isn't, but it really, really can be. So at Cura, we speak to people every day that have high risk situations, and a lot of firms would probably consider most of our clients to be vulnerable, but we don't necessarily customers vulnerable and vice versa, because it's whether or not you kind of do like blanket statements for different situations as to whether or not someone is vulnerable or not, and I will go into examples of this, so just bear with me. But the key thing is, is to just have a very clear set of rules or guidance as to what a vulnerable client means to you and to your firm, and for this to be aligned with some kind of industry standards, there are some really specific vulnerable client monitoring and reporting systems that you can sign up for which might be very, very beneficial to you. It's definitely worth checking them out.

 

At Cura, I've built our own vulnerable client monitoring and reporting system, just because everything I've looked at so far doesn't really fit completely with our clients and the information that we need. And I'll explain that again, just a little bit more on the basis that, you know, sometimes with client vulnerability, we need to ask questions and we need information, but we also need to be very, very careful of things like data protection. We're not meant to ask things that aren't relevant for our role and for our clients. And I think sometimes with some vulnerable client systems, obviously they are, they're brilliant, but they very broadly fit lots of different types of financial advisory firms or different financial just institutions anyway, and obviously, for myself as a cure, we are just a protection insurance firm. So there's quite a few things that we wouldn't need to know about somebody in order to give them advice or to give them the correct product for their needs. So we just need to be really mindful of what it is that our customers need, the exact information that we need about them to do our job, and just to make sure that we are obviously supporting them as best as possible.

 

So I'm gonna be chatting about some example vulnerabilities and responses to them kind of what we would consider a vulnerable client register and ways to protect you and your colleagues as well. I have to say, I'm going to do a little bit of tooting my own horn here, but I have actually won awards for my vulnerable client system and processes. So hopefully you agree that what I do sounds good. So key thing is as well, ultimately you must go by what your compliance officer says for you to do. Okay. So I can suggest all of these things, but ultimately, you must go by what your systems and your rules are said to you, and especially if they do suggest different to what I'm suggesting here. Do feel free to ask them, or Kathryn suggested this, and why don't we do that? And I'm sure they'll have good reasons. It might be actually that they add something new in which could be a really good thing. But yeah, I give advice and give pointers, but always go by what your regulatory systems are telling you for your specific firm.

 

So some example of vulnerabilities. I'm not going to be able to go through every single vulnerability that we might come across with a client, because there is just not enough time in the day, really. And also, as I say, it's different depending upon what you are looking at. So I've tried to go through the ones that I see is as the key areas that we might find, especially in protection insurance, but also other areas such as mortgage advice and pension and investment planning, things like that, just so that we can have, like, a general idea and some of these suggestions, or some of these vulnerabilities can be likened to others, so you can always broadly sidestep some of these suggestions to other areas as well.

 

So really key one that we come across, and that is often put forward, is communication barriers. And often that is said is English as a second language. Obviously, we have many. Communities and different cultures in the UK. And there are plenty of times where people do have English as their second language now, or they might not even speak English at all. And it's really tricky when I say about being subjective, because, you know, there are different levels of English as a second language. So, and I'm very, very aware of this, because my sister lives in Italy, and she's a fluent Italian speaker, and she teaches English as a second language to Italian students. She's lived there 15 years. She's a Italian citizen. She absolutely aced all of her exams in terms of understanding Italian, speaking Italian, everything like that. But there is still times it shall say, oh, you know, there's the odd word that still confuses me sometimes, but I suppose we get that in our own native language as well. But you kind of think, well, what does what does that mean when you say English as a second language? And that is say comes down to that subjectiveness. And sometimes it might be that you decide right anybody with English as a Second Language room automatically going to class as vulnerable. It might be that you class it as more that if there's a translator that needs to be involved, that that's when you class as a vulnerability. But we'll, we'll talk a bit more about that.

 

Other communication barriers are things like blindness, and that is from the reason of not being able to read the materials that come from the insurers or from other institutions you might be doing financial advice with, because a lot of them do not come with any kind of alternatives that would support somebody that is blind. Some do, but not a lot of them. It's very interesting to know that Braille is actually not necessarily the common language for people that are blind. It can be, obviously, very useful, but it's not the it's not the absolute So again, we'll talk a bit about that. We've got things like deafness, and people might think, well, if they're deaf, then, you know, we can go by email or, you know, lip reading, which you know is a potential but you've also got to bear in mind that for some people that are deaf, English is their second language, because British Sign Language is their first language, and it is different to English, so which can still make it quite tricky over Email. I mean by lip reading.

 

We've got things like inability to sign paper documents. Some insurers still require paper documents and signatures, which, you know, really we should hope that they're encouraging them to, sort of like, move into the modern world and start getting towards more the electronic side of things. In an easy electronic system, it is so so hard, because there is electronic systems and then there's electronic systems. So we want to make sure that we have easy electronic systems as much as possible. But again, I'll give some guidance. We have things like dyslexia, dyscalculia, things like autism, potentially Down syndrome as well. All of these would fall into communication barriers. We then have things like mental health as well. So common ones that will maybe be seen as vulnerability is suicidal thoughts or attempts self harm, something known as eupd, which is emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression might even have grief would be possibly in there as well.

 

We have cognitive issues such as confusion, forgetting parts of conversations, health conditions, so some firms with class cancer as a vulnerability. Now, again, it's subjective, so we're going to go through why I'm saying subjective, but we have things like HIV and paraplegia would be conditions that some firms might say are vulnerable. We've got things that we see to benefits, so Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment. There's also life events as well, so recent bereavement or going through a divorce, potentially even a long term absence from work because you've been ill, and things like emerging vulnerabilities as well. So it's important to understand that vulnerabilities can change. So you might speak to somebody one year and they're not vulnerable the next year, they might be or they might have been vulnerable last year, but this year they're not vulnerable. But we also have things like when we're doing in protection world, we have things like GP reports, and we might suddenly have a vulnerability emerging sense of maybe if there's quite excessive alcohol consumption, or maybe there's been a mention of gambling in that GP report as well, all things that can ultimately alter the options from the insurer.

 

We then also say all of these are kind of example vulnerabilities, but also potential vulnerabilities. So other potential vulnerabilities are things like going on maternity or paternity leave. So I'm just going to take a sip of water because my throat is little sore. So we've got a say, you know, the maternity, paternity leave side of things, because that will potentially very. Much so more usually more on the maternity side of things eventually affect pay and income, because we might then be looking at reduced hours going forward. Not saying That's definite, but we might be things like a potential redundancy. Do you class on a potential redundancy as vulnerable now because it's a potential or do you wait until they're actually made redundant? If that does happen, we have reintegration to work after periods of absence. That's quite a vulnerable time as well. There's lots of differences that are happening, lots of changes in terms of income and where it's coming from, and potentially lots of stress.

 

Kathryn Knowles  10:36

And what we need to be really careful about is looking at these vulnerabilities and potential vulnerabilities, and trying to understand, well, where does a vulnerability exist? Where do we do need to have, at some point, some kind of system that has like a tick box in some ways, to say this person is definitely vulnerable. This person isn't. But even talking about some of these things here, some of these things would absolutely have an influence on protection insurance. So I said there about the, you know, potentially a GP report that says that someone's having quite excessive alcohol. Well, yeah, that would really affect the outcomes on Protection Insurance Application. But what happens if you just work in pensions or investments? Why that wouldn't even come up in your conversations? Because why would it? So they would come to me and I would be saying, right? I need to mark this person as vulnerable, but in your systems, there wouldn't be which is why I say it's so subjective, and we do need to be very mindful. Because again, so this does happen. Obviously, I get lots of people introducing clients to us at Cura, and maybe something like this will happen. And then we need to have a conversation, because it's case of, right, okay, the vulnerable client to us, but this introducer doesn't know anything about this. So then we need to have that I say that conversation to say right to the client, are you okay with us discussing this everything with your financial advisor? Because as the financial advisor, you do not need to know that if you're working in the pensions and investment space in terms of what you are doing to achieve what you need to achieve for them, there is arguments that you should know about it, because it could obviously influence decisions, absolutely but at no point, if you haven't brought them to me, would you know about it. So that kind of ends up meaning that you have data that you don't need. So we just need to all be very, very careful as to how we discuss these things.

 

So let's have a little look at the types of safeguards that we would put in place for these different situations. Like I said, I'm not doing every single vulnerability known to man, but I will go through the ones I've mentioned. So English is a second language, so really key thing here, especially if you're working on like a signposting kind of situation, which you know, we certainly do. We have quite a lot of advisory users where they're from a different country originally, they've now come to the UK. They may be speaking to people from a same community where they all obviously speak their natural first language, and they're brought to us now in that situation, and in many this is kind of like a broad rule across a lot of different companies, is that the introducer cannot be the translator. And the reason for that is that we need to make sure, well, everybody, it's kind of like a safeguard for the firm as well as for the clients, is it needs to be very clear that the introducer isn't doing anything and suggesting anything or encouraging anything that doesn't match what is actually needed. Now I'm not saying that anybody would be doing that, you know, I'm certainly not saying that, but that is part of the concern around it, is that, you know, if you rely on someone to be that translator who is an introducer, you know, it's, it's quite hard, because you yourself, you can't then understand and hear what's being said. Because, you know, obviously, for myself, I barely speak a second language. I can get by a little bit with French, German and Italian, but absolutely not in conversation. I can just make out the odd words. And so when I need my sister to be honest, because she just speaks everything. But you know, if you are the if you are the primary advisor, with myself, and I'm speaking to some of the different language, then you know, I'm making sure that, as with anything, that those key features are being understood, that I'm speaking to that person, that we are really being clear about it. And you might wonder how we're doing that, but bear with me.

 

Whereas, obviously, if there's another introduction, another introducer in place, how am I checking Exactly? Because that conversation is kind of happening without me, which isn't what you want to happen. So what you can do is you would usually use a close family member or maybe even a close friend to act Alan. As a translator. It's a bit tricky to sort of say, Well, why is that better than having the introducer do it? And in some ways, it isn't necessarily that much difference. And in some ways, maybe having the advisor do it will be better, because they understand these things and understand the terminology, but it's making sure that you are speaking to somebody who is close to that person whose best interests is the client, and that they understood what's happened. So if there is any confusion going forward at all, that the client has something to speak to who's been there and has been involved in that conversation and does know what's been said and being done. Now when I say it must be a close family member or close friend, based upon my rules with my team, and you also need to look out for Alan bells. So let's say somebody comes to us, and we've certainly had this I'm not when I use these examples, I'm not talking about, you know, just random ones. It's all things that I've come across. So let's say that you have somebody in their 60s, and their parent is in their 80s. They've lived in the UK, obviously, for many, many years, but the parents in their 80s doesn't speak any English at all, and the child is wanting you to insure them for 2 million pounds worth of life insurance. They say, I'll be the translator, and you can't see any need for 2 million pounds worth of life insurance. That's when your alarm bells need to go off and go, do you know what? Actually, no, this isn't right. You know, just go back to your basics. What is the insurance need.

 

And if need be, as we will say, in many situations, you walk away and you do not do the advice. If you really do are concerned that there is something there that isn't, shouldn't be as it is. You might also have this in the same situation. You could have somebody who can't communicate because they've had a stroke. You might have somebody who is living with autism who can't communicate. And I will talk a bit more about that, as to what we might or might not do in that situation. Because, again, people might go, Well, what's in trouble? Interest? Well, bear with me as we get there. So if somebody is blind, you can offer to do audio recordings of your recommendation. Record the meetings, make sure to send them to them for reference. And I think a really key thing here, as well, as I will say, with most of these things, is ask them, what do they want? You know that if they are blind, they are very familiar with living in a world where, unfortunately, there's lots of situations where things aren't accessible. So what works for them? Just check with them.

 

Same for deafness. So, so if somebody is deaf, it might well be that they're very happy to speak by email, to lip read to obviously, do your video calls with them if you can't meet them in person. But if they can't do that, there is a good idea to try and find somebody who has, well, who can speak British Sign Language. There are some advisors. There's not many, but there are some advisors in the UK who can speak British Sign Language. So if you can do, just get them, see if they're available. Brilliant. You do also have now, at the time of recording it's available, Zurich also do have a link to British Sign Language interpreters. Obviously that does mean that it is more of a Zurich based conversation, but at the same point, if it means that the person can obviously speak and be properly listened to and and be able to communicate effectively, then it's certainly worthwhile making them aware that that is an option for them if they want to do that. And again, you might even have somebody with them who is going to be a translator. They might have a translator themselves that they want to bring to the meeting, or they might have a family member who is able to hear and can do the communication for you both. But again, just remain with that vigilance in terms of being able to double check what is being asked for and does it match what the person needs.

 

The inability to sign documents, as always, I will just keep saying and encouraging insurers to make an easy online process for clients across their different documents and things like that. It is mainly more to do with trusts. And obviously, trusts are an essential part of so many situations. So and I have to say, as well, make the trust easy. It's so easy if we can just put the details in online, rather than having to get everyone to sign up to 5 million different things to be able to do it. But I digress. So if it is an insurer that does require paper signatures, wet signatures, speak with them and establish what they will accept instead of a signature, because ultimately, you might have somebody who cannot write down their signature, that doesn't mean that they are so ill in terms of their risk their health, that they can't have insurance. So I'm gonna say I'm gonna automatically default to staying insurance, because it is what I work in but ultimately it doesn't mean that they can't have insurance. Yes, so they should be able to still access the full service. So what will the insurer accept instead? You know, maybe we could do it where the person could speak via audio and say that, or someone could sign in proxy for them, possibly more likely that, if there's a lasting power of attorney. But let's just see, just basically that one. You just have to speak to the insurer and see what they'll do dyslexia.

 

Kathryn Knowles  20:26

So there's a couple of things with dyslexia, and actually, lots of people dyslexia don't tend to go towards insurance too much because of the amount of reading and documents that are required, usually. So it's important that we do try and get the the message out there that it isn't necessarily, you know, massive documents like it used to be and but you can do stuff like, if you look on the QA website, we have a software on there called Recite Me. And it means that people who are dyslexic can change the all the web pages to any kind of color scheme or font or size that they need, which is really, really useful. It also translates into hundreds of languages, which, again, is really useful. You're also doing the thing with the other communication barrier too, but it could be, again, you know, can you do audio recommendations for them rather than doing it written out? Or do they have a specific color scheme that's important to them and potentially adapt the documents to match that. My middle child has just been diagnosed as dyslexic, and one of the things that we have for him now is specific glasses that are green so that that just helps solve what he needs. So it might just be that there needs to be a certain change in the way that you print out the documents for the clients. They might even just have the readers. There's certain things that they can have on their own computer which might just do it so there isn't any need. But I think a really key thing as well dyslexia, which is really interesting, is that for all of us, it won't necessarily come up in our questions. It doesn't come up in protection insurance questions or anything like that, unless it was something to do with a very recent diagnosis, which would just be a case of, have you seen a specialist at some point recently? So you might not even know.

 

The same comes with dyscalculia. So dyscalculia is a condition that really causes difficulty in understanding numbers and finances, especially, so it's really important to make sure that the person understands what's being arranged, how the premium is going to work, what that will mean to their budget. You know, if need be, if you're doing insurance to cover a mortgage, ask to see a copy of the mortgage offer, which is good practice for any client, really. But then at least you can make sure that the numbers aren't getting confused, and that you have the everything in front of you as it should be. You know, keep the math side as simple as possible. Possibly use diagrams if need be. But again, just ask them what works for them.

 

On the autumn side of things, we do get things where parents will come to us asking for life insurance for their adult child, maybe because they're in care and they want to they want to communicate now every firm to their own, we can potentially do that if there is a lasting power of attorney. What I would strongly advocate is that you wouldn't do any form of financial advice or support unless there's a lasting power of attorney in that position. Because even though they are the child of the obviously the parents, once they are an adult, there does need to be a lasting power of attorney in place to properly act on their behalf. We would then, if that was there, we would then set a limit on what we would do. So as an example, we would potentially do funeral cover, and that would be something that we would be comfortable to arrange. But again, going back to basics of what's the insurable interest the funeral cover, there is a there is an insurable interest there. We've been asked before, can you set up life insurance to cover our loss of carer benefits if they pass away for us as a firm that was an absolute no, that would not be something that we would advocate for in terms of, ultimately, the person, the adult child with autism, is our client in that instance, and that would actually potentially put them at risk. So we are putting in some safeguards there for that person's obviously, safety, but we would then also change the conversation, and it is important to look at this is sort of asking for the parents, what insurance did they have so that if something happens to them, what support is going to be in place for that adult child that needs help.

 

Mental health. Really key things are, when was it? You know, people might say, attempt, like, that's it vulnerable clients. But if it was 15 years ago, that wouldn't really be classed as vulnerable to me, especially. But again, this is it comes down to that subjective side of things. So for for ourselves at Cure, we would class probably a suicide attempt in the last. Year was vulnerable, and we would it doesn't necessarily change our approach because of the options that we would have for the client in that circumstance, but it just means that we are a bit more alert to the fact that there has been a stronger mental health event within the last 12 months. You do have things like the eupd depression. Again, it's very, very subjective, because people can have these conditions and be working, have a mortgage, have a family just be carrying on with their life exactly as you would expect. And then there's other people with those conditions who would be unable to work and who find it very, very hard to do day to day tasks.

 

So you need to establish in your own firm what classifies as vulnerable when it comes to mental health. And do bear in mind, if you say that about anybody, most people have had some kind of stress at some point or felt a bit anxious at different times. It is very you know, feeling a bit of stress, feeling bit anxious is very different to having stress and being having an anxiety disorder. But again, you need to be clear for yourself, for your clients and also for colleagues as well. In terms of the cognitive side of things. I was mentioning about the confusion, potentially, if you've noticed that misunderstanding things, wanting to we go over things more than you would expect, you might just want to sensitively ask if there's a close family member or friend that can join the conversation.

 

Moving on to cancer, vulnerability for cancer massively depends. Is it active cancer? If it is active cancer, I would definitely mark them as vulnerable, terminal cancer. Absolutely it is a clear vulnerability. But there's also cancer in the past. So when do you classify that, if it was cancer in the last two years, would that be vulnerable last five years? Then you've got, what about cancer of a loved one, so a partner, a child or a friend, if they pass away, what does this mean for the clients? Does that mean that they're financially vulnerable if this person passes away, are they making a knee jerk reaction in getting insurance because of someone having a diagnosis? And is that something we need to be mindful of too, is not making those rash decisions because of something that's really scared them? It's obviously, it's important very much support them, and yes, to do the insurance, but to make sure that it is something that's been done because, not out of fear, in a sense, we want to make sure that they're that they're okay and in the right headspace to make that decision to sign up for for the insurance.

 

We have HIV now this, again, is a depends one. Somebody living with HIV is not generally considered to be vulnerable in terms of medications and treatments. I've done, obviously, podcasts on this before, there is no reason why somebody living with HIV who is effectively medicated would be considered to be vulnerable. There are things that absolutely can be a vulnerability, such as there can be some linked conditions that could potentially mean that there is a vulnerability there. You might also want to consider it as a vulnerability in terms of a flag in your system for if the GP does not know about the diagnosis, because that means that they could become incredibly vulnerable if that diagnosis is told to the GP. I have given guidance on this before. Please do listen to the HIV podcast to hear about what you can do in that situation to support people properly.

 

Paraplegia as an example, it depends so somebody would say, yes, someone who's paraplegic is vulnerable. Obviously. They don't have use of their legs. They're probably in the wheelchair most of the time, and in insurance, you know that can have implications, in a sense, that can be seen as potentially a higher risk. Some people who are paraplegic are vulnerable. Some absolutely are not. So don't make assumptions. You're going to have to really check it each time somebody who's receiving Universal Credit. Just be very mindful of the budget for the policies that you recommend. You know it's very unlikely that a policy over 100 pound per month is going to be affordable, so just make sure that you are looking at the full picture when you are going to be building that recommendation for them.

 

Pip, performance, personal independence payments. There we go. I was thinking of something else more HR related then, and it is really, really hard to receive personal independence payments. It's not an easy thing to get. You must be really, really ill to get the benefit. So do class them as vulnerable. But also bear in mind, especially if you're working in protection insurance, what that means in the grand scheme of things, because, and again, we've certainly had this where people have come to us and have said, I'm in receipt of PIP or DLA, which it used to be called, and then they'll say, oh, and I've got this medical condition, but it doesn't really affect me. I'm not really it doesn't bother me. I'm at. Absolutely fine. That doesn't match up, unfortunately, and I'm sorry for saying it so bluntly, but it doesn't match up you a condition can't barely affect you in the instance of needing and wanting insurance, but then at the same point, be so bad that you are in receipt of PIP,

 

Kathryn Knowles  30:20

and that will eventually be something that alters the the recommendation, because of the fact that it's very, very likely in the GP record that that person is in receipt of PIP is very likely to have the written details from the person as to why they are in need of PIP, and the scoring that they were given for the different aspects of that, whether or not it's to do with the personal or the mobility side of things, and and the insurers, obviously, if it's in the GP record, that is going to be something that they take into account, because that is what's on record. So it's very, very unlikely that the condition is mild. So just be mindful of that. If you are looking at an option for somebody bereavement, make sure you give them time. Be patient. Be conscious of asking any questions that could be triggering, especially in the application. You know, if they've just had a partner that has passed away due to terminal cancer, then obviously the questions about cancer could be quite triggering and be very alert against any kind of knee jerk reactions to things divorce.

 

This is a really, really key area for vulnerability, especially for economic abuse. One things to try and do is to try and maybe split existing cover, if possible and relevant to their situation. It does mean, if you can do that, that ideally the premiums will still be lower than if you did something new. If there's been any changes to health, then hopefully there won't be any implications to that, to the price or even eligibility for the product. This is the prime time, though, for things like direct debit to be regularly canceled and reset as a form of control. So what that means is that somebody might cancel the direct debit. So then there's that constant thing of maybe software between a month three month of the insurer getting in touch saying you need to pay. You need to pay. You need to pay, to keep this policy, not in a pushy way, but just saying, Tom, you do realize this is going to cancel, then suddenly it's reset again, just in time to then be canceled again. And it's a form of, say, control and obviously, stress and unpleasantness for somebody, you might need to think about completely redoing the cover if there's not going to be an amicable conversation about changing the trusts, there's also as well, if it could be, and this can happen where maybe one party is not allowed to know the other person's new contact details, where they live, anything like that. And again, that can make it quite tricky if you were to try and change the trust, because especially if it's ones where the insurers require us to paper forms, there's going to be lots of toing and throwing to try and make sure that, without any shadow of a doubt that there, that there's no cross information in terms of addresses.

 

Redundancy obviously provide as much support as possible signpost to support services that they have with their insurances. You know, there can be some really, really key beneficial priority benefits there, if need be, maybe try to reduce the cover rather than canceling it, just so that they don't miss out on everything completely. But you do just need to be very, very mindful of for some people, they just simply will have to cancel the cover, which is such a shame, but it can happen with the long term absence from work, this is a really interesting one in terms of vulnerability, because obviously long term absence from work can absolutely mean that somebody is vulnerable and financially, but they might have had IP in place, hopefully, so maybe they're not too financially vulnerable. But it might be as well that you might be thinking, oh, right, well, we can't really do this or that, but it might be that they were in such a specialist job that they just can't do it any longer, because, like, something small has happened, but it doesn't make them vulnerable.

 

Maybe something big has happened, which, you know, is quite big, but isn't necessarily vulnerable, vulnerable to stop them getting things like the insurances. So a really good example there would be somebody like a pilot, a highly specialist will must be at the peak of health. Let's say something happens and they become blind. Well, they're not going to be able to continue to be a pilot. And yes, blindness in itself can be a vulnerability, but it shouldn't stop being able to get the insurance. I say that with a caveat of it does depend upon the reason for going blind, but that's just to give an example

 

Alcohol in the GP report, I mentioned that so really sensitive to discuss the alcohol levels, because this is an area that actually people can get quite defensive over, and they can feel quite judged about their alcohol consumption. Some people don't mind, and they laugh it off, you know, but some people can feel quite. Quite personally, kind of attacked in some ways, by being told that maybe the insurers are saying that they are drinking too much. So all you can do with that is essentially discuss the options and see what they want to do. Do they want to carry on? Do they not want to carry on? Do they want to try somewhere else? And gambling? If that comes up in the GP report, again, it is something that would change the insurers indications, because, again, it's a sensitive conversation, because of the fact that, and if they're asking about it, ultimately, you know, gambling would be seen, you know, gambling to the level that is mentioned in a GP report would probably be seen as being excessive. It'd be seen as potentially an addiction, which would be seen as a mental health condition. And that's not again to say that insurance isn't necessarily available. We just might need to change approach.

 

But you just need to know how to have those sensitive conversations to approach as to why the insurers maybe change things. And so vulnerable client register. Don't worry, I won't keep you too much longer, because I know I've been chatting quite a while about all this. So we vulnerable client register. It doesn't need to be anything super intense, you know, it can be simply a spreadsheet, and it can have in it the data vulnerability. Who noticed it, who's reviewed it, what the vulnerability was, what actions have been taken, and it's a really good idea to have a specific person to review them, and then obviously a backup person, in case, they're the person who notices the vulnerability. If you can have some kind of internal system that can flag that to each other, which is, unfortunately something that we do have in cure, because I do get this sorry sent to me quite a bit, and it might end up being that someone says, I think this person's vulnerable. And actually think, you know what? Actually, thinks, you know what? Actually, I think it's okay. It might be yes, this person is vulnerable, and we need to do X, Y, Z, and it can be a good idea to have somebody trained in a First Aider training course.

 

So you've got the M HFA England, Mental Health Foundation England offer First Aider training courses, and you get a certificate there, and they are really, really good to six, it gives you a really good idea as to what to do, because, as well, it's something I haven't mentioned. As well as vulnerable clients, somebody making a claim, you know, as soon as somebody's making a claim, they're vulnerable because they're needing to have the support of the insurance, or something's happened as a life event of some sort that is linked to that. So just be super, super careful of that too.

 

We then have, what I would quite like to suggest as well, is something that we're trying to integrate into Cura. And you come into our new client management system is what's known as a big V in a little v. And this was suggested to somebody, to Alan, by somebody, and I think I will say, I think it was Meg Kirby, so if it is, was Meg, thank you. It was Thank you. It was a really, really amazing suggestion and a big thing, and it'll be because, like we said, you know, a suicide attempt, you know, would be in the last 12 months. Would, I would cast that as a big V, you know, that is, yes, somebody is vulnerable. They've had a serious mental health event in the last 12 months. But somebody who had suicidal thoughts nine months ago, I'd probably class that as a for me, as a little V because they've clearly had some mental health it was nine months ago. There's been no for this person. There's been no actions on it, there's been no plans. There's just been a fleeting thought. I don't think that they're the same level of vulnerability. There's a scale, as with many things, there's a scale.

 

Kathryn Knowles  38:26

And things for you to do, the last things to sort of think about is protecting employees and colleagues. So this is so so important, because we do so much, and I've said this for years now, that vulnerability is something that you know, we really obviously, rightfully think so much about clients, but people aren't thinking enough about the advisors and what we might experience. Because I know that obviously at Cura, we are one of the go to firms where, you know, we are known for speaking to people in very high risk situations, especially with medical conditions and mental health. And you can get some people who barely tell you anything, and you get some people who will go through very specific details of their life events which led to different situations that can be very, very triggering. And even if you don't have mental health yourself, it can just be very, very upsetting.

 

You know, we've certainly had it where we have had multiple people say to us that they want us to arrange life insurance, because they have just bluntly said they will at some point take their life and they want the insurance in place for their family. That is really hard to hear when you're having a conversation with somebody, or maybe even somebody that you've built a rapport with up over a few periods of like time, over meetings and to hear that, and it can be very upsetting. And as well, you know, if they have children, you've children yourself, it really, kind of, it really, kind of can hit you.

 

So I originally heard about this from the Red Arc nurses years ago. Absolutely amazing people, I will always say that. And so what we have at Cure is we have little red flags on our desks and very, very strict rules about them. So basically, if somebody is worried about a client's safety, or if they are personally struggling with a conversation, they can wave their red flag high in the air. And we also have an internal messaging system, a bit like a whatsapp type thing. It's not WhatsApp, it's a very secure system where we have a specific SOS channel for remote workers to alert us as well. So basically, if the SOS channel pings or the red flag goes up, whoever, and this is anyone in the company who is not currently engaged with a client, will stop their work, and they will go to the SOS channel to ask what's happening and what's needed.

 

Generally, that will be that a manager needs to take over. It might be that we take over the call to establish the client safety and determine next steps. It might be that we need to say to the employee right once off the phone, here's a massive hug, here's a cup of tea, go for a walk. Or it might be that they need to head home after the call and just take some time to process what they've heard. Many of us at Cura have done the first aid of training, and there has been quite a few of us, and myself, as I say, I speak to a lot of people with mental health conditions in many, many intense situations. And there is times, you know, there was, I remember very distinctly. There was one time I'd messaged into our SOS channel and just said, I'm going to need a minute after this. And I went into the back office, and Alan, my husband and CO MD, came in with me. And I'm not someone who cries generally, and I absolutely sobbed after hearing what this person had been through. I just I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and he just cuddled me. And I know you can't always do that with everybody, but that's what I needed. And Alan, you know, has certainly had it as well, where he's had a call and afterwards he's he struggled. He's had to go out for a walk, you know, he's again, he's potentially had a cry, because it can really, really hit you.

 

And what's important when I'm saying this, is that you might think that this might not happen to you because of the nature of the nature of the clients you speak to, or the nature of the business that you do, but it is better to be prepared and to know what to happen in that situation, so that everyone knows rather than for it to happen and for you not know What to do, and your colleagues will certainly appreciate it if that was the case, if you had everything ready, right? So that is my quick kind of go over. Say quick. I apologize it probably wasn't quick go over of vulnerable clients, and what we would do to support them, look after ourselves as well. Thank you so much for listening everybody I say there are more vulnerabilities than what I've discussed today, but hopefully with most of the things I've said here, you can at least use some kind of side tangent thinking, Well, that could maybe be useful here next time Alan is going to be back with me and we are going to be deep, diving into fatty liver disease. And what that means, protection insurance, please do visit the website. Practical. Hyphen protection.co.uk. To listen to the other episodes and to get your CPD certificate. And a big thanks to Planet X, Planet X, Planet X, for their sponsorship of the podcast so that you can get those amazing CPD certificates. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye.

Transcript Disclaimer:

Episodes of the Practical Protection Podcast include a transcript of the episode's audio. The text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record.

We often discuss health and medical conditions in relation to protection insurance and underwriting, always consult with a healthcare professional if you are concerned about any medical conditions and symptoms we have covered in any episode.

Episodes

Kathryn Knowles is talking about the FCA Protection Market Study Interim Report
Episode 9 – FCA Protection Market Study Interim Report

February 19, 2026

Episode 7 – Weight Loss Drugs

January 22, 2026

Kathryn Knowles and Alan Knowles discussing Neurofibromatosis and Life Insurance
Episode 6 – Neurofibromatosis

December 11, 2025

Kathryn Knowles discussing FCA Protection Paper
Episode 5 – FCA Protection Paper

November 27, 2025

Kathryn Knowles discussing Cystic Fibrosis
Episode 4 – Cystic Fibrosis

November 13, 2025

Kathryn Knowles discussing Critical Illness Cover in Trust
Episode 3 – Critical Illness Cover in Trust

October 23, 2025

Coeliac disease life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection
Episode 2 – Coeliac Disease

October 9, 2025

Kathryn Knowles discussing joint life second death vs single life insurance
Episode 1 – Joint Life Second Death vs Single Life Cover

September 18, 2025

Bowel Cancer and Me - Phil Jeynes
Episode 13 – Bowel Cancer and Me

July 10, 2025

Early Onset Colo Rectal Cancer with Kate Baldry, Hannover Re
Episode 12 – Early Onset Colo-Rectal-Cancer

July 5, 2025