Firing lineMay 28 2020

Managing the current spike in protection

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Managing the current spike in protection

It has been well documented that protection products, such as critical illness cover and income protection, are undersold – partly because they are not always well understood by advisers in the first place.

Clients also remain hesitant to buy protection, citing cost as a primary reason, as well as a belief that they simply will never make use of the cover it provides.

But the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the need for protection into sharp focus.

It’s important that we continue those discussions to ensure that protection receives ongoing air time and attention

Ian Teague, UK managing director at insurance software provider iPipeline, says people are more aware of protection than ever before.

“From a business perspective, we saw a spike in protection – particularly income protection – sales in mid-March as people reflected on their needs and as advisers had more conversations,” he explains.

“But it’s important that we continue those discussions to ensure that protection receives ongoing air time and attention.”

Underserved markets

At the same time, the usual channels for protection sales are diminishing, including the mortgage application process and time with clients face-to-face. Mr Teague adds that fewer mortgages are being taken out as a result of a decline in house purchases during the lockdown in the UK.

iPipeline’s software automates this process at every stage, including lead generation, sales, underwriting and post-sale support. The company has been working hard with the mortgage market to improve the uptake of protection policies, which paid off last year.

“From an advice point of view, during 2019 we focused on underserved markets.

“Firstly, mortgage brokers, which saw an increase in protection cases through our services – in particular, income protection increasing 54 per cent in 2019,” Mr Teague says.

He explains that iPipeline recognises that advisers, the broker community and protection specialists face challenges such as increasingly complex products, in addition to searching for and documenting solutions for clients.

“It’s time consuming, people don’t necessarily have the skills, there are more intricate life events and the traditional gateways to protection have been occurring later in life.

“We focused on working in partnership with distributors, providers, and other partners in the marketplace in understanding what prevents advisers from delivering effective protection advice, making sales easier and better serving their client needs.”

By spending time listening to what the challenges are, he says iPipeline is then able to work with advisers and brokers to solve those issues with an innovative, technology-backed solution.

Going digital

“We work in an industry that historically had a lot of paper, a lot of manual processes, and technology creates the ability to streamline processes, supporting advisers and consumers in the digital age,” Mr Teague notes, adding that this is even more important in the “lockdown world”.

He predicts that as the UK emerges from the lockdown – whenever that might be – more consumers will be “digitally familiar” and be more willing to purchase and engage in a digital environment.

The current crisis has prompted increased demand for certain iPipeline products, including its e-sign solution AlphaTrust and its SSG Digital platform, which offers “end-to-end capability”.

Mr Teague says: “It’s a digital platform that’s enabling providers – the likes of The Exeter who also use the Alpha Trust capability – in terms of their claims process to operate effectively, and the likes of Zurich and Aviva to still write volumes of business and support their customer base.”

He adds: “Our lead generation tool has proven critical for our distribution partners to generate new leads and new opportunities in this time.”

Demonstrating agility

Helping providers and distributors through the Covid-19 crisis is clearly important for Mr Teague and his team at iPipeline. But how has the company and its 180 UK employees adapted operationally to working from home?

He recalls they began reassessing their plans in early to mid-February, in an effort to be “in a position where we could positively and proactively invoke working from home before it was absolutely needed”.

He adds: “But we now have our full team working from home and working very effectively supporting our customers.

“Our focus is on how we become more efficient and effective, how we still engage and collaborate as a team.

“If you’d asked me six months ago whether I was going to have 180 people working from home, I would have said ‘No, that’s a crazy idea’.

“But needs must, and we adapt our thinking and processes to make it work.”

Mr Teague asserts that the team is having more meetings and more discussions with its partners under lockdown than ever before.

“Nobody has a magic wand to make it all better, but we do have some capability and it is around relationships. It’s about being that trusted partner, helping through the difficult times,” he points out.

He is keen to see the industry emerge from the crisis in a stronger position and says his company has started to consider what the post-lockdown world will look like.

At iPipeline, the team has concluded that it will have accelerated some of the thinking and the journey the industry was already on.

In a time of crisis, things that people said were not possible are suddenly getting delivered, Mr Teague observes.

“There are people in the market today who are very agile, who are finding opportunities to grow, as a result of the lockdown.

“But there are also those who are struggling with multiple back-office systems, poor technology or digital capabilities that are finding it more difficult.

“We are seeing a greater impetus post-crisis to drive those digital agendas even faster and harder than they were being pushed before.”

Ellie Duncan is a freelance journalist