Protection Websites or IFA's

July 13th, 2010

Natalie Holt’s article in MoneyMarketing dated July 8 2010 highlighted that there is improvement to be made in the online protection arena in the UK.

The article draws on data from Swiss Re’s latest Term and Health Watch Report and states that the internet accounted from just 1.4 per cent of the total number of individual term insurance policies sold last year.

Lifebroker finds this hard to believe as protection websites generate traffic for IFA’s. In fact some IFA’s live off traffic from websites. Has this been thought about and included in the stats?

We all know that there are many life insurance websites that have been purely created to generate phone based leads that are touted to IFA’s. Are these the same IFA’s that cannot generate their own leads through great customer service resulting in recommendations? Most IFA’s that purchase these leads are very target driven. They pressurize people to buy their insurance over the phone at full commission.

Lifebroker sits proudly to one side whereby protection is not sold, it is purchased. Of course Lifebroker calls visitors but it is simply to ensure that the visitor knows what they are doing and to see if they need a hand. Lifebroker believes very strongly in quality financial advice and are aware that buying life insurance from a website is simply not the ideal solution for everyone. People that purchase their life insurance from Lifebroker have either carried out their own due diligence or have had advice from an IFA. The decision to purchase online is usually due to the IFA charging too much to set up a simple life insurance plan.

With regards to persistency; Lifebroker believes that where a client has purchased from a website and has not spoken to an adviser the persistency is more superior to meeting an IFA as the decision to buy is isolated. Lifebroker has spent time researching why so many protection websites have such poor persistency. Most Business Development Managers say that is due to pressured selling on the phone or the client finding cover cheaper elsewhere. One this is for sure though; most lapses take place at the lower end of the market where clients are the most price sensitive.