Wealth managers have a role in growing the protection sector by offering insurance products to clients or referring them on to other advisers, conference delegates have been told.
Speaking at the Protection Review conference at The Landmark hotel in London yesterday (19 July), Neil McCarthy, sales and marketing director at LifeQuote, said while the future growth potential lay with direct-to-consumer provision through banks, advisers in areas such as wealth management could tap into demand for protection from their clients.
While mortgage advisers currently make up a large proportion of protection product distribution, the section of the market occupied by wealth managers is comparatively small, he explained.
And although wealth managers may not look to offer protection products to clients, they could ensure they refer customers to a specialist who would be able to cater for their needs.
Advisers could also do more to boost sales by conducting a review process to re-engage clients: “We should be making sure we go back to consumers and ensuring they have the right product,” Mr McCarthy said.
In an earlier talk, Pamela Davey, account manager at Equifax Touchstone, pointed out that ‘everyday families’ – those with average incomes but low levels of savings - are the biggest protection buyers, suggesting more could be done to attract higher net worth clients.
Zurich’s head of retail propositions Peter Hamilton said he did not expect a great deal of business to come from wealth managers, but he did think there would be opportunities for partnerships with wealth firms.
He also stressed that while there was potential for growth in the direct-to-consumer business, advisers would play a key role for the foreseeable future.
In his closing speech, outgoing Protection Review chair Peter Le Beau pointed out that the protection gap remained strong in the mortgage market and called on the government to do more to address the issue.
He said that while 9.2m households have mortgage debt, only 3.2m have mortgage protection, meaning they could risk defaulting on their payments if they suffered a life-changing event.
simon.allin@ft.com
