With every month base rate is held at 0.5% we appear to be moving closer to a rise, however let us not forget that we have been saying this for the past 25 months. Just when it appears the inevitable is going to happen – and I would think the first step would be a 25 bps rise – there is further economic data revealed which seems to undermine such a decision from taking place.

The quarter four negative growth of GDP certainly put the cat among the pigeons and many economists have now moved their prediction of the first monthly increase from May to perhaps July.

This however always remains guess work, but it does not stop the mortgage market in particular hanging on every nuance and suggestion of when rates will rise.

The reason seems to be based on a belief that the increasing trickle of remortgage business will turn into a flood once borrowers become aware that rates are likely to rise even further.

Yet, we should take this potential scenario with a pinch of salt; it is unlikely we will see consecutive monthly rises of base rate. If base rate rises to 0.75%, the impact on someone who is on a tracker or variable rate mortgage will be (at least initially) quite minimal.

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Indeed, these borrowers are likely to have a ‘tipping point’ rate in their heads about when it would be best to remortgage, perhaps to a fixed rate. Clearly, some borrowers will be spooked by any kind of rate rise – we have already seen increases in remortgage business on the basis of market speculation. Yet others will be happy to wait it out, perhaps until rates are somewhere near the 2% or 2.5% mark.

An increase to that amount could take the best part of a year, perhaps even longer.

Mortgage advisers should not bet their business on the remortgage market returning with any considerable force during 2011. Instead, they should continue to do what they have done up until now to maintain survival and profitability.

It is my sincere hope that advisory businesses do not dismantle their business plans of the last two or three years in the vain hope that the mortgage market is going back to anywhere near pre-2007 levels. This is wishful thinking on the grandest of scales.

The fact for most mortgage advisers is that while mortgage business may have remained the bread and butter, it has probably not been putting food on the business table to any great degree lately. Most successful advisers cottoned on to the fact a while ago that it was probably protection advice which could be the most lucrative and most stable.

This has not changed in the last six months, in fact, given the uncertainty that surrounds not just the UK economy, but people’s job prospects, it is protection advice which is probably the most relevant for a client.

Therefore, protection work has perhaps never been so important for the clients it protects and the regular, ongoing revenue it can generate for an advisory business.

That said, we still see firms where protection is not a priority and there is clearly an opportunity being missed here. I would suspect that some mortgage advisers are worried about delivering protection advice. We should not forget that some advisers merely became order-takers during the ‘boom years’ and providing quality protection advice is far removed from this.

Advisers have to learn the skills of protection advice before they can put them into practice; in a way we have truly come full circle.

We are back to the days where an adviser’s skill, knowledge and expertise are being put to the test by their clients, the market, the products and all manner of macro-economic factors. It is not simply a case of typing in some numbers, jotting down a product code and away you go.

Protection advice requires effort and dedication, it also requires professionalism and the delivery of quality. Some advisers lost these skills, however those that have continued to be successful since the credit crunch have re-engaged with these attributes and are clearly benefiting from this.

It is not too late to follow the same path.

Richard Adams is managing director of Stonebridge Group