Signposting vulnerable clients to specialists

Supported by
Scottish Widows
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Supported by
Scottish Widows
Signposting vulnerable clients to specialists
Pexels/Isaque Pereira

Effective signposting is therefore key, as Chris Dunne, protection proposition manager at Scottish Widows, observes: “Signposting to specialists is a long-established practice in the medical, legal and other professions. And it should have an increasing role to play in the insurance market.”  

Johnny Timpson, founder and chair of the Access to Insurance Working Group, who is also a commissioner at the Financial Inclusion Commission and a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, also highlights the need for signposting. 

He says: “Signposting is particularly important where the client is vulnerable or potentially so. In certain circumstances, this can and does result in a need to collaborate with and/or signpost to specialist advisers, brokers, support services, charities and/or consumer groups.

"The adviser should first assess their client’s needs and signpost when and where appropriate." 

He continues: “The circumstances where it would be appropriate to signpost to a specialist adviser, broker, support service or charity might be where the service required is not, or cannot be, provided by the adviser, as it is beyond their authorisation and/or their and their firm’s risk appetite or area of experience, or if the service required is specialist legal advice on a specific subject or area of law that the adviser cannot provide. 

Signposting can and does result in a need to collaborate with and/or signpost to specialist advisers, brokers, support services, charities and/or consumer groups Johnny Timpson

“In other circumstances it may be that the adviser cannot deal with the case due to their workload or personal circumstances; the case needs urgent action that the adviser cannot undertake; or the adviser thinks there could be a conflict of interest if they take on the case.” 

It is important to ensure that clients are pointed in the right direction, as Timpson adds: “Where it’s to a specialist financial services firm, ensure that they are fit and proper, and able to provide advice.”

Help at hand

One factor that may require an adviser to signpost a client to a specialist is age – some providers will only offer a product up to a certain age limit.

But older customers make up a sizeable proportion of the population. According to Office for National Statistics, as at mid-2020, almost a fifth (18.6 per cent) of the population was over 65. This suggests there could potentially be many people experiencing difficulties in obtaining cover.  

However, this problem has been recognised and action has been taken to support people in gaining access to cover where they have previously encountered difficulty, due to age or medical conditions. 

In 2012, the British Insurance Brokers Association, the Association of British Insurers and the government entered into an agreement to help older people get the insurance cover they need.

This signposting agreement means that if an insurer or broker cannot offer cover because the client’s age is above their age limit, then they are automatically referred to an alternative provider or to Find Insurance, BIBA’s not-for-profit signposting service.

Health has been addressed too, with work undertaken to help those excluded from protection insurance.

In early 2020, a group of insurers, protection insurance groups, charities and other stakeholders launched a signposting agreement to help people with disabilities or medical conditions to access protection insurance, following the creation of the Access to Insurance Working Group in 2018.

Again, the agreement is for providers to signpost customers they cannot help because of their medical condition or disability, to a company that can.  

As Tom Conner, director at Drewberry, explains: “Where some advisers are ‘tied’ or work from a panel, they might not be able to gain cover for clients with significant medical disclosures. 

“Likewise, if a client goes direct to a provider and applies online it could be declined, where another insurer could offer cover. For these circumstances, BIBA has added protection specialists to its Find Insurance service, and the uptake of this is looking very positive.”

BIBA added protection to the range of insurance offered by the service in January 2020 and by August this year had received 4,500 enquiries.  

Tapping into the knowledge of the adviser community can also be useful for advisers seeking to signpost a client, as Kathryn Knowles, managing director at Cura Financial Services, suggests: “To find a specialist firm, the adviser can chat to other firms that they trust to see what they do.

"Also, if the adviser is part of a network, it probably has specialist firms that they can use that have already been vetted.

“A specialist adviser should have had training and extensive experience of working with vulnerable clients."

She adds: "Ultimately, by engaging with a specialist, the client gets the cover that they need and the referring adviser gets a share of the commission that the policy generates, where otherwise there might be none.”

It is not just specialist firms that can help, as Timpson says: “It’s key that we also signpost to charities and specialist services where appropriate, such as Turn2us for welfare benefit and grant entitlement, GriefChat for bereavement and Mental Health UK.”

Knowles takes a similar view: “There are also organisations such as Rethink Mental Illness, the Money and Pensions Service, and Mental Health & Money Advice that advisers can signpost clients to.

"Advisers should have numbers for the Samaritans and emergency services to hand, too.” 

She adds: “Another step that firms could take is to install accessibility software like Recite Me on their websites (this allows web users to customise websites according to their needs and preferences, including people with dyslexia, the visually impaired and the neurodiverse).

“Lack of access on websites is thought to cause businesses a loss of £11.75bn a year."

Fiona Nicolson is acting deputy features editor at FTAdviser