This week our experts are:
Phil Jeynes, head of account development and PR, PruProtect
Mark Screeton, distribution director, Legal & General Network
Jon Round, chief executive of First Complete
Phil Jeynes, head of account development and PR, PruProtect
Gender neutrality presents issues for the industry and not least advisers, when it comes to explaining the changes and their impacts on customers. It also presents significant opportunities and we will be doing all we can to ensure that brokers have the relevant information and assistance needed to maximise their effectiveness in the lead up to the end of 2012. We have a marketing campaign which will run during Q3 and beyond, focussed on what the changes will mean and giving suggestions on how the messages could be raised with customers. Included in this campaign will be email bulletins, sales aids and letter templates which advisers can personalise for their use.
The key for advisers is to be in close contact with their clients during this time and we believe that, with our help, they will feel they have the tools needed to do so. Additionally, we are offering a Cover Booster incentive between June and September, which offers 30% extra life cover FREE for 3 years. While not directly linked to the Gender Neutral Directive, it provides great impetus for clients thinking about taking cover.
PruProtect has the largest distribution support team in the Protection market, comprising of 150 face to face business consultants as well as telephonic support, so we feel confident we will be unrivalled in our ability to give intermediaries all the help they need in both understanding and making the most of Gender Neutral pricing.
Mark Screeton, distribution director, Legal & General Network
The new gender changes mean that life and critical illness premiums will increase for women, in some instances as much as 15%, according to sources and may even be more, plus an increase for men for Income Protection plans.
For advisers this means that now is the ideal time to grow their protection businesses with new sales opportunities for single and joint life cases resulting in increased revenue and commission.
If you wait for Wimbledon, the Olympics and the holidays to finish you will be too late.
If you have not already contacted your clients about the increase, it should be a priority – it will be difficult to face them next year when they ask you “why didn’t you let me know?” Mortgages are difficult and take a long time and a last minute rush will not be good for your clients, so make sure you talk protection this summer.
The Legal & General Network has engaged with all our businesses and agreed bespoke marketing campaigns. We have already launched a generic Gender Campaign for advisers with a range of supporting material and will continue ongoing support for the rest of they year with adviser and customer facing messages, client contact letters for male and female audiences and relevant news.
Jon Round, chief executive of First Complete
First Complete started an education campaign for advisers back in April.
The Gender Directive will make a fundamental difference to the pricing of certain life and protection policies and brokers need to be aware that any policy which has not been issued by midnight on the 20th December will have to be re-written with new pricing.
We are working incredibly closely with product providers to understand their likely approaches.
In addition all providers that we work with are now forwarding us information for all the First Complete cases they have in the pipeline so we can help advisers ensure that the case goes through in time as normally a quote is valid for three months, but of course this won’t be the case as we get closer to the 21st December deadline, as the usual quote periods will expire.
In addition we are helping our advisers to get back in touch with all existing clients, plus prospective new clients, to tell them how they will be affected. We have provided them with campaign letters and in the next few weeks we will be providing information on how an adviser can run a successful campaign.
