Life can be unpredictable, and none of us can see into the future.
When advising your clients, you can not tell them when they may suffer a loss or have a serious challenge to their lifestyles as a result of an illness or change in circumstances.
But putting some protection in place now could mean the difference between keeping a home and maintaining a lifestyle, or ending up back at square one with the added pressures that brings.
So that’s where our four Whys come in: Why the product? Why the provider? Why the amount? and Why the term?
Covering the 4 Whys will ensure that most of the bases are covered and recorded so that your client really understands the importance of protection and how it relates to their future financial planning.
It is also important to understand what is in place at work in terms of critical illness cover or life insurance.
Although, as most people will move employers at least seven times during their working lives, can work benefits be relied on throughout the term of the mortgage or protection needs?
That is something for everyone to think about: what happens when their circumstances and job prospects change.
The 4 Whys for protection
Why the product? There are several forms of protection, be it level, decreasing, family income benefit, whole of life and income protection.
Also, the variety of benefits within those products is evolving at a frequent pace.
It is highly likely that your clients may not have purchased any form of protection before. It is very important to give a clear definition of each product as they all have distinctive jobs to do.
For example, a mortgage protection policy is designed to repay a capital and interest mortgage in the event of death or critical illness if the option is chosen.
However, they are not designed to provide family protection in the long term.
The likelihood is that as a family grows through time, their life cover and critical illness needs will also grow.
A decreasing level of cover will not help this situation over the longer term, whereas a level amount of cover will provide the benefits it was designed to achieve throughout the term.
Of course, this will need constant review to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the customer and their family.
Why the provider? The choice of provider should not be dictated by the price alone.
Current protection policies have a multitude of features.
Each customer is different and will have different motivations for the protection they choose to take.
This may come down to the number of critical illnesses that a policy will cover, to the claims history of a provider.
