It is difficult to be both an expert in mortgages and protection according to Andrew Montlake(pictured), managing director of Coreco and chairman of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI).
It is difficult to be both an expert in mortgages and protection according to Andrew Montlake(pictured), managing director of Coreco and chairman of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI).
Montlake expressed his opinion within the fourth episode of the third season of the Practical Protection Podcast entitled ‘Protecting Your Mortgage’, hosted by Kathryn Knowles, managing director of Cura Financial Services and Roy Mcloughlin, associate director of Cavendish Ware.
Responding to a question posed by Knowles, Montlake said: “I’m passionate about protection and life insurance.
"But I just found that it became really difficult to be a mortgage expert and an expert in protection.”
Montlake said clients would receive a better outcome if advisers were clear at the outset about what they could offer.
Last year research by AMI revealed nearly all advisers (97%) talked about protection at the application stage but just over one in three customers (36%) remembered it being mentioned.
Highlighting the issue Montlake told Knowles and McCloughlan: “There’s a massive disconnect there immediately.
"It is trying to get over that barrier, making sure that your processes are absolutely spot on, that you are talking about it and different people have different approaches.”
He went on to explain that at Coreco the client is told at the beginning of the process that mortgage protection needs are passed on to a specialist adviser to follow-up on and that in general the main difficulty for mortgage brokers is the volume of paperwork they’re already faced with.
He said: “I think the reality of the issue is, especially when you are a busy mortgage broker, mortgages are really not complex, but hard in terms of paperwork, when you have got people calling you up and you have a lot of enquiries coming in.
“The most important thing for that client immediately coming into you is they just want that property.”
But he says that in those situations brokers to take a step back and slow the client down, reminding them of the importance of protection and why they should have it.
He added: “So it’s about really getting the process right and I would suspect that a lot of, probably 90% to 97% of advisers, are talking about it, but it’s just a passing mention rather than something that’s embedded deep into their process and that’s the point that we need to get to.”
You can listen to the podcasthere.
