Most insurers offer business protection tools that can help to highlight the vulnerability of an SME and whether products like key person cover or shareholder protection should be investigated.
Insurer Vitality also offers a risk calculator for SMEs. Multiple employees can be entered according to age, with the tool calculating the percentage chance of them passing away before retiring, helping to highlight the position the business would be in if the worst happened.
The tool can be found at businessriskcalculator.co.uk
6) Protection top tips.
Providing clients with online guides, top tips and the do’s and don’ts of buying protection is a simple way of arming people with information before they take advice, and helping them avoid the pitfalls of making a protection mistake.
Drewberry Insurance includes a number of guides on its website, including the top 10 income protection questions asked by clients, how to reduce the cost of IP, top reasons you don’t have IP and a guide to own occupation policies.
Protection specialist LifeSearch includes a guide to protection on its website and answers commonly asked customer questions, and Beagle Street offers guides to buying protection for people with specific circumstances, lifestyle habits or illnesses such as smokers, pregnancy, hazardous hobbies, cancer and diabetes.
7) Budget planners.
One of the starting points, and most useful exercises for clients when buying protection, is to produce a budget planner of their current expenditure.
Either an online interactive or downloadable form could be added to an adviser site to collate all areas of family expenditure, including mortgage payments, bills, cars, loans, entertainment, shopping, food, etc.
It allows people to see if their finances would stack up if an income was lost, if they could survive on their current protection provision or state benefits, and also to examine how they currently spend their money and if simple savings can be made.
This is also one of the most common sales tips from adviser firms.
If you ask your client to print off their monthly bank statement (easily done these days with online banking) and ask them to begin crossing through the things that would stop if they had no regular income, the process can be quite illuminating.
Most people don’t finish the job of course, because it becomes too difficult, which in itself demonstrates the need for protection.
8) Real life stories.
Including examples of real life protection stories on your website can help bring home the value of a claim being paid.
Might one of your clients agree to being featured on your website, either as somebody who has bought cover or perhaps a claim? Or a local business endorsement?
Currently, the charity-led industry campaign Seven Families, is raising awareness of the need for income protection through the stories of seven families across the UK, who lost an income without financial support in place.
