Having initially worked in his shed during the warmer months, as the colder weather spreads Mr Higgs has moved back into his house, which is now his place of work for the foreseeable future.
With FTRC deciding to close its London office permanently and have all staff working remotely – albeit still meeting up once a week – it has done nothing to slow down the work he does as head of research at FTRC-owned Protection Guru, launched 18 months ago.
“It is not just ‘do you offer this: yes or no’; we really drill into the detailSix years ago FTRC launched protection cover comparison tool Quality Analyser to provide information to advisers about the protection market.
But the idea for Protection Guru – a website focused on product analysis, policy changes and upgrades – came about following feedback from advisers.
Mr Higgs says: “[A lot of advisers said to us]: ‘The system is great in helping us to compare products based on features we deem important to our clients. However, you cover a lot of features. And while we generally have an understanding of what those features do, we don’t really know enough detail behind it’.
“So we decided to start [creating] insights, where once a week we would look at a particular feature of a protection product and go into the detail of how that feature could benefit clients, how the features actually work in practice and the differences between insurers.”
Over time FTRC built up a catalogue of information, which it regularly sent out to its Quality Analyser subscribers.
“So we thought, why don’t we put that into a website where people can easily find them and go through them? And that was the origin of Protection Guru.”
The aim of the site is to act as a technical service to help educate advisers on the finer points of protection plans, and help advisers be more confident when they are talking to clients in detail about protection products.
As for the providers, Mr Higgs says it has strengthened the company’s relationship with insurers, because it is helping to highlight areas where they are strong.
“They have always given us the information since we started doing the Quality Analyser system,” he says.
“And the success we have had with Protection Guru has focused them more on what we are doing, because we have been far more public in saying what they do and what they do not do.
“If anything, it has had a positive impact on our relationship with insurers, because we are helping to highlight areas where they are strong.
“There are obviously times when we bring out points where they may not be strong, but any reasonable person at an insurer should understand they are not going to be the best at everything and they have strengths and potential weaknesses.”
Data gathering
Protection Guru’s benchmarking covers an exhaustive range of protection benefit types and consists of a survey that is in excess of 5,000 questions.
The survey is permanently open to insurers who only need to amend their data when they make a change to their proposition, which they do in advance of the change going live so that the data Protection Guru provides to advisers is updated on the day the insurer makes the changes.
Mr Higgs says: “It is not just ‘do you offer this: yes or no’; we really drill into the detail. It is not only about what is offered, but how it is offered, to whom, what the limits are, etc.
“All of that information powers everything we do from various benchmarking systems that we provide to advisers, through to the content on Protection Guru and everything else.”
Mr Higgs says the area in which insurers have stood out this year has been with value-added offerings, particularly virtual GP and mental health services, which have been invaluable to customers.
In the critical illness market there has also been a move away from a conditions race, as providers amalgamate conditions to make it easier for consumers to understand what is being offered.
However, Covid-19 exacerbated underwriting challenges, which have always existed for insurers.
Very early on during the pandemic, getting a client that had any pre-existing conditions underwritten was a lot harder. It was not only difficult to get medical evidence, but also insurers and underwriters were going through an uncertain time.
“To a certain extent we are still in a period of the unknown. While it has started to look more positive, with potential vaccines... there is still the issue with the ongoing effects of Covid-19, which many underwriters are particularly cautious about,” Mr Higgs says.
“And that is causing a lot of frustration with advisers; they are getting cases where pre-Covid they would have been able to get underwritten.
“On one side you can see the insurer’s or reinsurer’s point of view; there is still a lot of uncertainty about the long term-impact on people’s health. [But] it is frustrating [for an adviser], when they are struggling to get cover for their clients.”
Another area that Mr Higgs says providers need to work on is income protection, particularly to help those with changing income.
“Income protection is a really good product and frankly everyone should be protecting their income,” he says.
“I would like to see insurers work more on how their cover adapts to people who have a changing income. I don’t think there is enough flexibility within that product at the moment for that.”
And while consumers find it easier to understand life insurance and CI insurance, they struggle more with understanding IP.
Mr Higgs says: “There is more work to do to help people understand. And there is certainly room for the industry to collaborate and get those messages out there.”
Ima Jackson-Obot is deputy features editor of Financial Adviser and FTAdviser
