Nearly nine in every ten brokers (88%) feel they are not selling enough protection to clients, Legal & General Mortgage Club has found.
Nearly nine in every ten brokers (88%) feel they are not selling enough protection to clients, Legal & General Mortgage Club has found.
This comes as recent figures show just 10% of UK adults have some form of income protection policy.
The mortgage club is urging advisers to to discuss the importance of protection more frequently with clientsduring and after the mortgage application process.
It’s ‘Deadline to Breadline’ report also found that nearly a third of employees didn’t have any financial back-up plan in place.
Richard Kateley,head of intermediary protection, Legal & General, said: “The fact that only one in ten brokers believe their business is selling enough protection is evidence that our industry needs to do more to highlight the importance of protection.
“However, encouraging your client to discuss this topic is easier said than done when we live in a culture of reactiveness. The most successful brokers make protection a core part of the mortgage sale rather than an end of process consideration – and by this point, it is usually too late.
“We are happy to insure our pets, mobiles, iPad, or valuables yet none of these will pay our mortgage if or when life happens to us. When it comes to prioritising our own health and well-being, procrastination seems to come first.
“Our ‘Deadline to Breadline’ research revealed that nearly a third of UK employees have no financial back-up plans should they be unable to work due to an illness, disability or death.
“Statistics like this cannot be ignored, and brokers are front and centre in this challenge to help clients plan with foresight.
“At Legal and General we want to use our market position to help close the protection gap, by making protecting the last mortgage you wrote more important than the next mortgage that needs to be arranged.”
The figures follow a recent announcement by Legal & General toupgrade its intermediary case management system, Online Protection Connect.
This provides advisers the ability to quote, apply and manage all of their protection cases with Legal & General in one user-friendly system.
This update will help to streamline protection applications, and as a result, free up more time for advisers to focus on growing their businesses and ultimately closing the protection gap.
Kevin Roberts, director, Legal & General Mortgage Club, added: “As an industry, it’s clear we need to make more time for advisers to focus on what really matters.
“That’s why we’re committed to embracing technology to deliver the frictionless mortgage - removing some of the hassle while freeing up time for advisers to provide valuable discussion on protection.”
The results form part of Legal & General’s Mortgage Club Autumn Conference, which surveyed brokers about their views on the future of the mortgage market, as well as the potential opportunities and challenges they face.
This follows its previous research which found that Brexit has overtaken robo-advice as the greatest threat to brokers – with a quarter of brokers (25%) choosing this option.
