According to a poll during a Mortgage Solutions Lunchtime Learning session with UnderwriteMe, which asked brokers to rank what frustrated them most about the protection selling process, 26 per cent of brokers thought unexpected client disclosures partway through the application was the most frustrating.
Around 24 per cent pointed to doing more than one application with more than one provider as the most challenging part of the protection process, followed by 23 per cent who cited spending time sitting on pre-sales calls for a client.
Pre-sales protection calls
In a separate poll, half of brokers underwent pre-sales protection calls with around three to five insurers.
Around 37 per cent said that there would have pre-sales calls with one to two insurers and approximately 11 per cent said that they would speak with five or more insurers.
The remaining two per cent said they only did pre-sales call with one insurer.
Romeesa Khan, hybrid account manager at UnderwriteMe and masterclass speaker, said: “It’s interesting to see a fairly even split between the four common frustrations we’ve identified that adviser experience in their protection processes.
“Many advisers may not get around to calling more than a handful of insurers for pre-sales underwriting. Pre-sales calls can be a time-consuming process and ultimately lengthen the protection pipeline, with each call taking between 15 minutes to one hour on average for a single client.”
She continued that the platform eliminated the pre-sales step as it offers instant pre-sales underwriting decisions from eight insurers, which means quoting is more accurate and factors in more disclosures. This means brokers can better meet clients expectations.
“When you think about the current protection selling process, advisers navigate their way in finding the best policy for their clients through running multiple pre-sales calls with insurers and potentially multiple applications as well, which means they are duplicating their efforts and time.
“We believe that the protection process should be as easy as buying car insurance. The Protection Platform offers a streamlined protection process through a single underwriting journey that gives advisers multiple fully underwritten decisions in one platform,” Khan said.
UnderwriteMe was founded in 2012 and is a free protection platform that offers pre-sales underwritten quotes, fully underwritten premiums, buy now prices and benefits and access to multiple insurers all in one place, making it quicker and easier for advisers to integrate protection into their conversations with customers.
There have been over 4.6 million underwritten applications on the platform and over one million activated policies.
