Brokers who offer either international or UK PMI without the other will miss out on vital business, an IPMI specialist broker has warned.
Specialist Dawn Sheldrake, finance and administration manager at Expatriate Insurance Services, speaking at a drop-in IPMI clinic at the AMII conference today, said her firm had started expanding into UK PMI.
She said: "We want to offer everything. We wanted to stop passing leads on elsewhere. To do one without the other is missing out on additional business."
But she added in terms of business volume, the increasing growth of the IPMI market in the last few years on its own was enough.
Session attendee Carl Carter, managing director of IMG Europe, and Aimip chairman, said the international market had moved on in the last few years as a new breed of expats had started to come through.
He said: "There has been a growth because of low cost flights, over-development in certain areas of Europe has made second homes affordable and the internet development has been a driver too. People can work more and more from multiple locations.
"We are seeing a good tidal wave of interest from UK brokers. And IFAs are starting to turn to it a lot because they are well positioned to ask clients about things like second homes and emigration."
Carter added IPMI would be a small part of business for firms initially but they could expand into global marketing and grow that way.
Fellow drop-in attendee John Crisford, director of independent specialist healthcare advisers, said the IPMI business in his firm had been built up since 2009 and opportunities had developed significantly.
He said: "In the last 12 months the IPMI market has moved on leaps and bounds and is, in many ways, more innovative than the UK. We offer advice on both.
"The only barrier with IPMI is price. It is more expensive so on the corporate side I cannot see companies paying more. And companies do not realise there is a need."
