"By extending the period which our home insurance quotes are valid for, we’re trying to eliminate a major pain point and help advisers deliver a better customer experience."
- Louise Pengelly, Paymentshield proposition director
Last year, Paymentshield calculated that advisers were losing out on £16 million a year in commission fees by not selling GI to remortgage and product transfer clients.
Consequently, Paymentshield has extended the validity of home insurance quotes from 120 days to 180 in an attempt to ease some of the frustrations caused by current delays with mortgage complications and new build purchases.
Paymentshield believes this extension will give advisers more confidence when providing home insurance quotes since the price will remain the same on the date of exchange as well as enable them to discuss GI earlier in the mortgage process without worrying about expiring home insurance quotes.
The extension will also help address insurance renewal dates and remortgage dates not matching up, which is currently one of the biggest barriers faced by advisers when selling GI to remortgage clients.
The decision to extend quote validity was reaffirmed when a Paymentshield’s Adviser Survey conducted last month revealed that over 24% of advisers felt the extension of quote validity was the best way to improve GI discussions with remortgage clients. This survey included responses from 331 advisers.
As well as the extension of quote validity, Protectshield has also introduced a new requoting function on the Adviser Hub which, should a pending policy expire, enables advisers to automatically re-populate information. This saves advisers time in data inputting by removing the need to manually re-enter all the customer data required to generate a new quote.
Paymentshield is also due to new functionality which will prompt advisers to ensure that long-standing policies are still meeting their clients’ needs. It will flag where policies have been in place for 8-10 years, making it easier for advisers to identify clients who might benefit from a review.
Louise Pengelly, Paymentshield proposition director has said:
“Millions of home-buyers are currently experiencing really long delays in the purchasing chain. This is understandably making life difficult for advisers when it comes to quoting GI, and can be frustrating for clients if it causes the quote to jump up in price. Now, they’ll have that extra time buffer to provide reassurance in the event that the exchange date does slip.
“We also know that the issue of a mismatch between renewal and remortgage dates has typically been a headache for advisers when it comes to selling GI, and this extension directly delivers on something they’ve told us would help to solve that.”
