Given the potential growth of hybrid health and protection policies, the Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries (AMII) has said it is open to expanding its remit to the protection market (although it has no plans to do so at present). Would this be a good move for protection focused IFAs, or is an alternative solution needed?
Phil Jeynes, Direct Life
To represent our interests, what is required is a unified voice on matters relating to protection and, crucially, a voice with credibility and influence within the corridors of power.
I am certainly of the opinion that adding another trade body specifically for protection advisers, while appealing as a concept, is flawed in its potential to deliver this aim - adding as it would another chair around an already crowded table. Creating an alliance with a successful and complementary existing organisation seems to me the most likely route to achieving our goal.
In this respect I will watch with interest to see what success AMII has in its attempt to get a government rethink on the proposed insurance premium tax hike from 5% to 6%. AMII argues that such an increase on private medical insurance (PMI) would deter the public from taking or retaining this cover, piling more pressure onto the already overwrought NHS.
One area in which AMII has already made progress has been the introduction of a qualification specifically focused on the PMI product set. Launched in conjunction with the CII, this award is A-Level equivalent and is likely to be followed up with a higher level exam in due course. This is in direct contrast with the protection industry, which has been talking about creating a dedicated qualification for some time now, as yet without result.
If AMII proves to have influence and the product sets continue to converge (not a foregone conclusion), a union might be wise.
Matt Morris, LifeSearch
Any trade association that can bring insight and expertise to the protection market should be welcome to offer help, if they have an interest in growing sales and boosting consumer knowledge of the need for our products.
The Association of Medical Insurance Intermediaries trade association for specialist independent private medical insurance intermediaries is no doubt a capable and competent trade body and if it has ideas that would boost the sector then so much the better.
So far all well intentioned efforts to grow protection, such as the Consumer Protection Insurance Engagement Campaign, have not been able to go the distance and actually produce agreement and results. Although this campaign idea was primarily aimed at the sector's providers.
The main need in this area, throughout protection, is for specialist trade bodies, not conglomerates acting across many areas of expertise, because being spread too thinly can lead to lack of focus and therefore distraction. We don't need any more talking shops.
A real and important step forward would be for the formation of a specialist protection trade body which could speak for the market, particularly advisers, in a way that no other body can at present.
An important element of any pan-industry organisation is that its remit and aims are clearly defined to avoid the inevitable distractions and competing agendas that tend to hamper a lot of good intentions.
Chris Hulme, Clayton Hulme Partnership
The marketers create more convoluted protection structures making advice even more invaluable than ever before. This sees institutions such as AMII forming to provide consumer benchmarks for advice qualities.
Given the mistrust of the FSA by advisers and clients in the regulators' ability to ensure advice quality, such benchmarks are vital.
Consumers are more confused than ever before about how to choose financial products, this choice not being helped by the supermarket-style hype of cheaper, cheaper, cheaper.
Client confusion is equalled when it comes to choosing advisers. This sees clients seeking adviser firms with further accreditation than the standard FSA regulated status. Accreditation from bodies such as AMII becomes more important in aiding the clients' choice of adviser and aids the advisers marketing to clients requiring their area of speciality.
A step on from the CertPFS, SoFA, CeFA, and other generic lettering used by many in the past to demonstrate accreditation from examination boards such as CII and IFS, skill specific bodies seem to be the way forward for both client and adviser benefit.
As adviser firms focus on key specialities and skills, the AMII should maintain its remit in health insurance but this should not prevent it developing separate protection specific bodies in other key areas, like income protection, personal life and critical illness, also for those advising on group life schemes.
The key aspect here though is the quality of the accreditation or membership organisation to test its members' qualities - and who would monitor or regulate this?
Dean Mason, Masons Financial Planning
As an adviser whose business is primarily protection focused I believe this is a sensible move. What the last two and half years has taught us as an industry is the necessity to diversify and make the client proposition a more inclusive one.
The perceived shrink in NHS funding, and ever more treatments and drugs not being readily available through it, have raised the profile of private medical insurance (PMI) with the public and advisers. With mortgage, pension and investment business still tougher to find (although personally 2010 has seen a rise), many brokers are taking a more holistic view.
I have certainly seen more ‘private healthcare specialists' who wish to join with the traditional protection specialists, IFAs and mortgage brokers, and this can only be great news for the buying client, AMII and the industry as a whole.
Clever product innovation by some insurance companies has also struck a chord with well advised clients making PMI a solution to a need which now has added value and often showing the client a tangible, quantifiable benefit from their premiums
Hybrid policies are the future in my view, as we must simplify the choices for the public and achieve a mutual goal of trying to bridge the frightening protection gap that exists in the UK, while educating our future client base once again that protection is the bedrock on which to build their financial future. Whether you are a protection or medical insurance specialist we are in this together and that is the only way forward.
