Would you want a slick mail order operation where you didn’t know anything about the customer and just sent the chainsaw out in a box where someone might open it and take their hand off?
Or might you want it sold, say, at a garden centre, by a person who advises the buyer about safety, and probably sells them some ear defenders, goggles and gloves as well?
Mortgages are like chainsaws. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands or for people with more enthusiasm than common sense. They can do great damage, to an individual’s or family’s finances if they are chosen or handled wrongly.
So to follow my analogy through. Just like with a chainsaw, for a mortgage purchase people need advice. They need to be advised about the right product for their needs (hedge trimming or full scale forestry!) and they need advice about how to protect themselves in order to make having a mortgage a much less dangerous experience.
Buildings and contents insurance and mortgage protection as a minimum. But also payment protection and family protection too.
Lenders should be concerned to be working with advisers who do the full job. The comprehensive advice and protection job. And advisers should want to do the full and proper job to make sure their customers are as protected and safe as can be into the future.
Doing the full job, properly, will bring real, long term, rewards and build the integrity and repute of our fine industry. Oh yes, and will also help us all to sleep better at night because we are doing a great and proper job for our customers… not just assuming that they don’t need protection advice because we are so keen to get on to the next chainsaw sale.
Duncan Crocker is managing director at Legal & General Network
