"It’s clear to us that this is still a relatively underused option compared to sales of separate protection products, such as stand-alone life, critical illness and income protection. "
Over the first three months of 2018, IRESS recorded 20,046 multi-benefit protection new business applications compared to 14,312 over the same period in 2017.
However IRESS believes multi-benefit protection still remains an underused option, which it says is down to advisers having to go to multiple provider’s websites to obtain separate protection quotes.
Dave Miller - Executive General Manager (Commercial) at IRESS, said: “Even though we’re seeing some big percentage increases in the sale of multi-benefit products, it’s clear to us that this is still a relatively underused option compared to sales of separate protection products, such as stand-alone life, critical illness and income protection. This might be because advisers are still going to various provider’s websites directly and rekeying customer data multiple times, in order to obtain comparison quotes.
“Going to multiple provider’s websites to obtain separate protection quotes is just such a waste of time. Sourcing comparison quotes for multi-benefit plans is simple and easy to do. Advisers can quickly establish whether a single plan offering different types of protection cover is more cost effective than sourcing the same individual benefits with various providers. The benefit of using connected technology to do this is that data only needs to be entered once.
“I’m sure if more advisers knew how much time and effort could be saved by sourcing comparison quotes for multi-benefit plans in one central place, we’d see more people getting different types of protection cover, appropriate to their needs, in one plan at an affordable cost.
“Interestingly, 52% of multi-benefit quotes are actually produced on a single benefit basis. What we understand from this is that an increasing number of advisers are using the multi-benefit framework to enable broader protection conversations with clients – starting with one type of protection and adding additional benefits within the same plan if different types of protection cover are required.”
