The good news is that the FCA thinks that the protection industry is working really well, it just needs a couple of tweaks. Overall, I am really happy with what the report says, but there are some areas I don’t agree with and you can hear my views in this episode. I am going through their review of insurance costs, claims, complaints, the role of commissions, restricted panels, loaded premiums and more.

The key takeaways:

1. Within pure protection products, income protection has the lowest value in terms of cost compared to claims success, but is still much higher than other insurances
2. Loaded premiums, commission and restricted panels have been analysed and shown to not show significant detriment to consumers
3. Closing the Protection Gap remains one of the key challenges for the protection insurance industry

There are a lot of insights in the report and it is well worth a read. I’ve tried to pick out certain pages to direct you to, in case you don’t fancy the full thing, it is 47 pages.

Next time Alan will be back with me and we will be covering how fatty liver disease and protection insurance work.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

Most of you probably recognise my name as a specialist protection insurance adviser and really specifically someone that helps people with higher health risks. I’ve often spoken about the needs of vulnerable clients and been involved in multiple industry events for this topic. I’ve even won an award or two.

So it seems silly that I have not covered this before and I am going to make sure that I give you as many tips as I can during the episode.

The key takeaways:

1. Examples of common vulnerabilities
2. Guidance on how to build a vulnerable client register
3. Ways to support your clients and your employees/colleagues when discussing vulnerable situations

Vulnerability is very subjective and it can also change over time. Sometimes people can think, well we’ve never come across this before and we will just handle it if it happens. Which you can do, but it is much easier if you have a clear structured process in place. Your clients and your colleagues will thank you for it.

Next time Alan Knowles will be back with me and we will be deep diving into fatty liver disease.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

Health professionals and insurers have said for many years that having a higher BMI isn’t healthy and can lead to long-term health complications. Weight loss drugs are proving to be a highly effective way for people to lose weight, which is generally seen as a good thing. But, there are side effects to taking the drugs too and at the moment there is very little long-term data to know what this may mean for someone 5, 10, 15 or 20 years down the line.

The key takeaways:

1. The use of weight loss drugs is showing very positive results from short-term data
2. There is not enough long-term data around the use of mounjaro, ozempic, or other weight loss drugs, for insurers to completely understand client risks
3. Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people who are taking or have taken mounjaro

It has been a super intense start to the year, we were caught in the snow and school snow days have certainly had an impact on my timings. At this moment I’m not sure what the next episode will be covering but make sure to tune it as I will be bringing you even more protection insurance insights.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

The key takeaways:

• Neurofibromatosis can cause difficulties for the skin, nerves, heart, bone development, balance, hearing and more.
• Neurofibromatosis can lead to other conditions such as epilepsy, scoliosis, deafness and vision loss.
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people living with neurofibromatosis.

This is our final episode of 2025 and I hope that you all have a lovely festive period and come back in 2026 feeling super refreshed and ready to learn more about protection insurance. .

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

Overall I think the paper was really well written and gave an accurate portrayal of the industry. It was clearly written and not too long, so I would recommend giving it a read if you can. I’m not a data lover, but, they did have some stats in the paper that really stood out and I think are brilliant examples of how intermediaries are in this space.

The key takeaways:

• In 2023 individual protection insurance claims totalled £4.85 billion.
• 97% of income protection sales are advised, we’re doing an amazing job!
• Key focuses of the review are going to be ensuring effective competition, addressing the protection gap for vulnerable consumers, assessing influence of distribution channels on consumer outcomes, and reviewing commission and broking practices.

Next time Alan is going to be back with me and we are going to be talking about arranging protection insurance for people living with neurofibromatosis.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors PlannerX.

Unfortunately standard routes for personal critical illness cover and income protection are not currently available. The absolutely best way to be covered by these insurances is through group cover through an employer, but even then there can still be some technicalities that can cause an issue at point of claim.

The key takeaways:

• Approximately 11,000 are affected by cystic fibrosis in the UK and 1 in 25 people carry the gene without knowing it
• The median age for people living with cystic fibrosis that died in 2022, was the age of 33.
• Three case studies of arranging life insurance for people living with cystic fibrosis.

Next time I am going to be talking about the FCA’s recent protection insurance paper and my interpretation of what this means for our industry going forward.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

There is a huge drive in our industry to place policies into Trust. It’s the kind of thing where I might potentially do a compliance fail with my team if a policy hasn’t been put in Trust where there’s a really simple online system to do so. (I know, I’m a battle-axe!) But, they are really so important and there are not many occasions when a Trust isn’t relevant or easy to do.

However, there’s an emerging problem with critical illness policies placed into Trust.

The key takeaways:

• To make a claim on a critical illness policy, all trustees must sign the claim form
• A critical illness policy placed within a Trust could be a vehicle for an abusive Trustee to prevent a client from receiving vital financial support
• Insurers are aware of this issue, but there are no ways to improve the process, with current Trust formats

Next time, Alan will be back with me and we are going to be going through protection insurance options for people living with cystic fibrosis. If you have tried to get cover for clients in the past with cystic fibrosis, you’ve probably seen how difficult it can be. We’re going to be taking you through the different options that you can consider.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

A lot of the time coeliac disease is not a concern to insurers looking at life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection. However there are quite a few things you should check with your client about the condition, before you assume that their insurance applications will be accepted at standard terms.

The key takeaways:

• Approximately 1 in every 100 people are coeliac and it is estimated that around 500,000 people are undiagnosed in the UK
• Whilst it is not common, coeliac disease can increase the risk of other medical conditions such as bowel cancer
• Three case studies of arranging protection insurance for people living with coeliac disease

Next time I am going to be focusing upon critical illness cover being written into Trust. There are some specific technicalities at the point of the claim that are worth knowing, so that you can properly advise your clients about placing the cover into Trust or not.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

For the first episode of Season 11 I am taking you some things to consider for joint life second death versus single life cover. You might be thinking, hang on what is Kathryn on about, those types of policies are for different things. It is a unique set of circumstances that I am talking through, but still very important to know.

When I was recording this I realised that what I’m covering is really quite technical and I jump about a bit, between different areas. I’m sorry! There was no way to easily avoid it. 

The key takeaways:

• Joint life second death policies with a notional decline, cost the same as a single life policy
• Pros and cons of a single life policy being arranged instead of JLSD
• A case study example of costing for a JLSD policy and JLSD with a notional decline

I’ve also got some exciting news for the podcast, exciting to me anyway. My eldest son Theodore turns 14 soon and is going to start working for me. So all things podcast related including your CPD certificates will soon be done by him.

Next time Alan will be back with me and we will be chatting through arranging protection insurance when you have coeliac disease. There has been some changes when it comes to underwriting that we will be going through.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

Phil shares with us that this was his experience too. Prior to his diagnosis Phil had none of the traditional things in his life that would make him stand out as someone that might develop bowel cancer. It was a huge shock to him and his family, and Phil talks about what it felt like to go receive his diagnosis, treatment and how he is now.

The key takeaways:

• Even if you don’t fit the usual checklist of someone that is at risk of bowel cancer, if you experience any symptoms it’s always best to see your doctor, just in case
• It can take a while for your body to recover from bowel cancer and Phil is still working on this 2 years later
• Private medical insurance can work alongside NHS services to get you the diagnosis and treatment you need, as soon as possible

This is the last episode of season 10 and there will be a little break while the summer holidays are with us. Do you have anything that you would like to see covered in Season 11? Get in touch and let me know!  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

It was particularly interesting for me as Kate shares that some of the patterns that they have seen are due to people being tall, healthy BMI and having their gallbladder removed - I hit all three of these! The main takeaway that I have from our chat is that whilst these factors might contribute to bowel cancer diagnosis, at the moment it is still very much an unknown. There are a lot of theories but no definitive reason as to why bowel cancer diagnoses are increasing.

The key takeaways:

• Early onset bowel cancer is when there is a diagnosis before the age of 50
• Deep dives into claims have shown that many claimants had no family history of bowel cancer or other disclosures related to digestive health 
• The TNM score of the bowel cancer diagnosis is essential in determining what the options for protection insurance will be

Next time I will be joined by Phil Jeynes, who will be sharing with us his story of a bowel cancer diagnosis and what life has been like for him since.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

With insights from Australia, China, South Africa and America, Lisa shares different approaches to insurance outside of the UK market. 

The key takeaways:

• AI can be used to proactively look through medical records of declined applications, to see if the ‘computer says no’ has been too harsh
• AI can be develop and grow over time, so that it can make more automated decisions, freeing up underwriters to focus on the more complex cases 
• AI can play a fundamental role in preventative healthcare by spotting early changes in health 

Next time I will be joined by Kate Baldry, Research and development underwriter at Hannover Re, talking about her insights into colo-rectal cancer.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

Things like your client’s residency, their health and other factors, can play a big part on how your approach choosing the right insurer and life insurance product for them.

The key takeaways:

• Three case studies of arranging life insurance in different ways for gift protection 
• Two case studies of arrange life insurance for IHT protection 
• Insights into how reviewable and guaranteed premiums can each work positively for your clients, depending upon their circumstances 

Next time I will be joined once again by Lisa Balboa, Head of Life & Health Digital Business Accelerator at Hannover Re, to talk about the latest insights into AI and insurance.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

Chronic fatigue syndrome or ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) is a long term condition that can cause significant tiredness, pain, brain fog, sensitivity to light and many other things. Approximately 1.3m people are living with the condition in the UK and it can alter your options for insurance, especially critical illness cover and income protection.

The key takeaways:

• Most critical illness policies will exclude any claims for Total Permanent Disability
• It is likely that most options for personal income protection will not be available, but there are alternatives
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people who are living with chronic fatigue syndrome

Next time it will just be me doing the podcast and I will be focusing upon protection and IHT case studies.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

Alcohol can also have quite an influence on options for insurance. If you’d had a few intense drinking sessions in your late teens early twenties and your GP said to calm it down, that might not be too much of a concern to some insurer. But, there’s often a question about ever being told to reduce your alcohol consumption, that can lead to quite a different insurance journey if the answer is yes.

The key takeaways:

• Some insurers class you as a non-smoker after 5 years or no nicotine consumption, for others it’s up to 5 years
• The weekly limits for alcohol consumption in the UK have changed, and it’s affecting insurance applications
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people who have had excessive alcohol consumption in the past

Next time Alan is going to be back with me and we are going to be talking about underwriting of chronic fatigue/ME.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

In this episode we talk about Ukraine, Russia, the US and how getting insurance isn’t the easiest thing to do. Lee takes us through how international insurance can make things far simpler for clients who move countries, if they need to make a claim.  We also take you through some key points about admitted, non-admitted, group and individual protection.

The key takeaways:

• International protection insurance options change quickly depending upon the health, social, political, financial and environmental situations of a country.
• There are some countries where you will simply not be able to arrange protection insurance for if you plan to travel or live there. There can be super specialist options, but it is pretty much guaranteed that the policy will exclude claims that happen in the sanctioned/restricted country.
• A case study looking at quite a straightforward international client requirement, and another case study of a more complex situation.

Next time Alan is going to be back with me and we are going to be talking about underwriting updates for cigarettes and alcohol.  

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors NextGen Planners.

We are going through what’s working well in the IP world and what we would like to see change if we had a magic wand. I know that my magic wand wish will not be popular with many people!

The key takeaways:

• Men are still far more likely to take out income protection than women 
• The IPTF are wanting to promote the way that ASU products can work, where income protection is not possible
• A case study of arranging income protection for a Barrister, where you must be on top of how the deferred period is going to work with their ongoing income stream

Next time Lee Doran from William Russell is joining me to discuss international protection insurance. We’ve been planning what we will chat about and I’m very excited as I advise in this area, and we’re really going to get into why underwriting international cover is not always straightforward.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

High BMI affects life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection applications in different ways. Depending upon the BMI there can be ratings to the premium, the need for medicals, application declines and specialist insurers, popping up at different times. BMI tables are very outdated, however they are one of the simplest ways for insurers to get an overall sense of a person’s health quickly, which can speed up insurance applications.

The key takeaways:

• A high BMI is linked to the development of diabetes, heart attack, cancer, stroke and many long term income protection claims
• BMI assessments can work brilliant if you’re a white european male born in the early 1800s (aka they are very outdated and don’t take into account different genders or ethnicities!)
• Three cases studies of arranging protection insurance for people living with a high BMI, including someone with a BMI of 83

I am back next time with Jo Miller from the Income Protection Taskforce to discuss what is going on in the IP world. I’m a huge fan of IP, it’s arguably the most useful protection insurance for someone working in the UK, and it can be moulded to meet your client’s needs in so many ways.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Income protection is available with many insurers and there are lots of quirks and different options. One of which is simplified income protection. This product type is available with British Friendly and Shepherd’s Friendly, and it has the potential to open up income protection to people who can’t get income protection through fully medically underwritten routes.

The key takeaways:

• When you arrange simplified income protection you are accessing insurers that don’t use occupation classes to price their policies, this can make a massive difference to the price
• You can arrange simplified income protection if you can get past the Killer Health Questions
• Two case studies of simplified income protection being arranged

I will be back next time with Alan Knowles and we will be discussing high BMI and protection insurance. I can’t believe I haven’t covered this as a standalone episode in the previous 9 seasons. We will be talking about when BMI ratings start to kick in for life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection, when insurers start to decline and your options if you face this situation.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

It is really interesting with social media influencers as they are tending to reach out for support with their insurances, from the mindset that they need income protection. For a lot of people income protection is often thought of after life insurance and critical illness cover, so it’s great to see this difference starting to emerge.

The key takeaways:

• Not all insurers are able to insurer social medical influencers from income protection, for the precise reason that they are a social media influencers
• Some insurers can consider applications from social media influences for income protection, but the occupation that they are doing might lead to a rating or decline of cover i.e. fashion model, stuntman etc
• A case study of income protection and a case study of accident and sickness cover

I will be back next time discussing simplified income protection options, how they work and where they stand out for you and your clients.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

There are approximately 350k people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the UK. It is a condition that results in the body not producing any insulin, leading to a build up of sugar in the blood, that can cause long-term complications in the eyes, heart, kidneys, liver and limbs.

The key takeaways:

• You are more likely to get income protection if you are type 1 diabetic, than you are to get critical illness cover
• Not all insurers are able to consider type 1 diabetics for income protection cover
• A case study of arranging income protection for someone living with type 1 diabetes

I will be back next time with Alan Knowles and we will be talking about arranging income protection for social media influencers, an area that we are starting to see popping up a lot more.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

We are kicking things off with a look at inflammatory bowel disease, specifically Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis, which are believed to affect well over 1m in the UK. Depending upon your clients specific circumstances you can see a range of outcomes including standard terms, premium loadings, exclusions, postpones and declines.

The key takeaways:

• The time since the most recent flare up of Crohns or Ulcerative Colitis symptoms is key to the options you will see for insurance
• Immunosuppressants can work wonders for managing Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis, but it can make it harder to get protection insurance in place
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people living with inflammatory bowel disease

I will be back next time with Cirencester Friendly to discuss income protection and type 1 diabetes, plus their brilliant 125 Fund..

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

The last episode of season 9 is all about group critical illness cover. We have recently covered group life insurance and group income protection, and whilst they are all quite similar, group critical illness cover has a couple of big differences.

The key takeaways:

• Group critical illness cover is paid for by a company but the premiums are treated as a benefit-in-kind for the people covered
• People who cannot personally get critical illness cover can be covered by group critical illness cover, but there will be exclusions for pre-existing conditions
• A case study of group critical illness cover

I will be back in 2025 with season 10 as we enter our 5th year of providing the protection insurance training for you.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

The key takeaways:

• There are a lot of types of hepatitis: A, B, C, D, E, alcoholic and autoimmune
• Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver and affects hundreds of thousands of people in the UK each year
• Two case studies of arranging protection insurance for people that have experienced hepatitis

I will be back next time with a short episode going through key parts of group critical illness cover and the do’s and don’ts of advising on this type of cover.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

The key takeaways:

• How free cover level limits work for group income protection 
• The definition of a group income protection claim can potentially change over time
• A case study of group income protection for a firm with 15 employees

I will be back next time with Matt Rann and we will be talking about hepatits and protection insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• Approximately 1 in 20 people are affected by fibromyalgia
• Key details about fibromyalgia that you need to know to complete your presales research
• Two case studies of arranging protection insurance for people living with fibromyalgia

I will be back next time with a short episode going through key parts of group income protection and the do’s and don’ts of advising on this type of cover.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• You can insure everyone or specific groups with group life insurance, you do not need to insure all employees but you must be mindful of anti-selection
• The differences of registered and excepted group life insurance
• A case study of group life insurance for a firm with 79 employees

I will be back next time with Matt Rann and we will be talking about fibromyalgia and protection insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• 1 in 20 people have a thyroid condition and we’re talking through the more common ones
• Key details about thyroid conditions that you need to know to complete your presales research
• Two case studies of arranging protection insurance for people living with thyroid conditions

I will be back next time with a short episode going through key parts of group life insurance and the do’s and don’ts of advising on this type of cover.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Giving a financial gift is a lovely thing to do, but without the right protection in place the person who receives the gift could face a rather unexpected surprise of a tax charge. The tax on gifts is for 7 years from the date of the gift if the person making the gift dies during this time, and there are some quick and effective ways of setting up life insurance to help with any tax that might be due. 

The key takeaways:

• The potential tax on a gift is 40% of the full gift amount and this tapers over the next 7 years 
• Your choice of Trust will be a key part in protecting the gift beneficiary
• A case study of building a gift planning solution with 5 separate term policies

I will be back after the summer with Matt Rann who will be joining me to talk about all things protection insurance and thyroid disorders.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Cillian is the Global Head of Medical Underwriting Propositions and Products at PartnerRe and is sharing his knowledge of how RTBF has developed in the Irish insurance market. This is potentially quite an emotional topic and we are clear from the start that we are talking about this situation from a technical basis, that might not be easy for some people to hear. 

The key takeaways:

• The Right to be Forgotten is not currently legislated in the UK.
• How insurers determine the ways to assess insurance applications for people that have been diagnosed with cancer.
• Three case studies that show where the RTBF would and wouldn’t improve terms for someone that has experienced cancer.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the author. This podcast is for general information, education and discussion purposes only. It does not constitute legal or professional advice and does not necessarily reflect, in whole or in part, any corporate position, opinion or view of PartnerRe or its affiliates.

Next time I will be back and focusing upon protection insurance planning when you have made a gift within the UK. There are very specific do’s and don’ts and the Trusts are really key!

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• With a joint life second death policy one of your clients might be declinable, BUT, they can still be covered by the insurance.
• Two case studies to show the price difference for joint life second death whole of life, depending upon age.
• Cautionary tale about HMRC and terminal illness benefits.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

I have been very clear not to provide an opinion about whether assisted dying should and shouldn’t be allowed, instead focusing on the facts of how the majority of life insurance policies in the UK would behave if a claim was made following someone choosing to die due to their health. At the end of the episode I include some details of support services that you can reach out to, if you have found the discussion difficult to listen to.

The key takeaways:

• The majority of insurers in the UK offer life insurance with an initial 12 month suicide exclusion 
• In Canada where assisted dying is possible, the insurers do not consider death through these means to be suicide
• In countries where assisted dying is allowed physical and mental health conditions ca be viewed differently

Next time I will be back and focusing upon protection insurance planning when you have an IHT liability. There’s some specific do’s and dont’s that can make huge differences to how life insurance claims pay out.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

In this episode I am explaining some of the main ways that executive income protection is different to personal income protection, how to explain the benefits of the policy if you get some client objections and a case study to show the potential pricing of the cover.

The key takeaways:

• Executive income protection is available with an employer and employee relationship
• Company Directors taking dividends need to be clearly advised on how the claims process works if they continue to take dividends after becoming too ill to work  
• A case study of executive income protection

Next time I am going to be discussing a topic that could be quite difficult for people to listen to. I was approached on social media about how the rules of life insurance work in regards to assisted dying, given the recent debates in Scotland and Isle of Man. It might not be an easy episode to listen to but I hope that people will find it useful.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• You are 5x more likely to have a stroke if you have atrial fibrillation
• The types of information you need to know to get a clear underwriting indication for life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection.
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance and income protection for people living with atrial fibrillation

Next time I will be back and focusing upon executive income protection. It will be a quick-ish overview of this insurance product and the do’s and dont’s when advising on this type of business insurance policy. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

In the podcast I discuss how relevant life insurance is an employer and employee relationship. It’s a thank you for your service to the company. I forgot to mention that one of the key ways to check if someone is eligible for this is if they are on the payroll (taking PAYE). Relevant life insurance is probably the simplest business insurance product that we can arrange for our clients.

The key takeaways:

• If you are planning to do relevant life insurance to specifically cover a mortgage, chat with your compliance people first.
• Make sure you are clear with your clients about the periodic charges that come with relevant life trusts.
• A quick summary of relevant life insurance versus group life insurance.

Next time we will have Matt Rann back and we will be focusing on another underwriting risk and discussing the options you might see for life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We talk about the different types of cardiomyopathy, how they affect the body and the usual causes of cardiomyopathy. Matt takes us through the two types of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and how they can affect the outcomes for protection insurance applications.

The key takeaways:

• There is a genetic link to HCM and it can come up in family medical history questions
• The thickness of the heart wall and the part of the heart wall that is affected are essential for your research
• A case study of a person living with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that needed life insurance

Next time I will be back and focusing upon relevant life insurance. It will be a quick-ish overview of this insurance product and the do’s and dont’s when advising on this type of business insurance policy. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Hopefully one of the simpler business protection policies that we can arrange, but I have certainly had some interesting conversations with people that don’t understand what this kind of insurance does. I remember quite a specific debate with a tax adviser who was saying their client needed keyperson cover because they wanted the tax advantages of the premiums, but what they needed the insurance to do was shareholder protection. I stood my ground!

The key takeaways:

• Keyperson cover can be life insurance, critical illness or income protection.
• It is designed to protect the Company, not the individual or their loved ones.
• An explanation of the Anderson principles.

Next time we will have Matt Rann back with us talking about hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the options you might see for life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

When applying for protection insurance most insurers will want to know if a person has been diagnosed with APS. It is very likely that the insurer will want to see a report from the applicants GP, to confirm details about their health. If they have letters from their consultant that detail their diagnosis and any recent check ups, you never know the insurer might be able to underwrite using that rather than waiting for a GP report. It’s always worth asking!

The key takeaways:

• APS increases the risk of a person developing deep vein thrombosis and experiencing a heart attack or stroke
• The questions you need to ask someone to do your underwriting research well
• Two case studies of people living with APS and other medical conditions, that were able to get life insurance

Next time we will be starting season 9 of the PPP and I am going to be kicking it off with a look into keyperson cover, what it is, how you can advise on it and things not to do! 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

In this episode I am giving an overview of cross-option and company buy-back shareholder protection options. There are other ways of doing shareholder protection arrangements, but these tend to be the main ones so I’m focusing here. I’m giving you a quick run through key elements of shareholder protection for you to make note of, to give you a bit of a checklist of insurance do’s and dont’s.

The key takeaways:

• Don’t forget premium equalisation!
• Company buy back is great but make sure client’s know about the Gazette. 
• You can do company buy back shareholder agreement for a person with less than 3 years as a shareholder, but watch out for potential tax.

Next time Matt Rann will be back with me and we will be talking about antiphospholipid syndrome and what this means for your life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

You are far more likely to be diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis if you are a woman and if you are over 40. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get it when you are young or if you are a man. When it comes to protection insurance it’s quite likely that the insurer will ask to see a report from the applicants GP, to make sure that they fully understand how the condition is affecting them.

The key takeaways:

• Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease which means the body is attacking itself.
• The way different medication types can quickly change underwriting indications. 
• Two case studies of arranging protection insurance for people with rheumatoid arthritis.

Next time I will be back with a spotlight on Shareholder Protection, what it is, how to advise on it and some of the times when things can go very wrong. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The first one is focusing upon insurance for Business Property Relief. In this episode I am explaining what BPR is and why it’s so important that we look out for it, as some people might have wandered into an arrangement that could potentially have this tax benefit without even realising it.

The life insurance side of things is quite simple, but that can be where the biggest danger comes from. Life insurance at 40% of the share value over 2 years, pretty easy right? Yes and no, and I am taking you through what you need to know.

The key takeaways:

• Purchasing business shares that can qualify for business property relief can be a good option for a person’s full financial plan.
• A case study showing how to arrange life insurance to protect against the loss of business property relief.
• Make sure that you get the life insurance Trust right or you can lose the tax benefits linked to business property relief.

Next time Matt Rann will be back with me and we will be talking about arthritis and what this means for your life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• Understanding what heart valve disease is and what it can meant for a person’s overall health
• The medical information that you need to know to be able to get as accurate an underwriting indication as possible 
• A case study of arranging life insurance for someone living with heart valve disease.

Next time I am doing a slightly different episode to usual. I am going to be talking about business property relief insurance as a product, what it is and how you should advise on it.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Travel insurance is focused upon emergency assistance that you might require when you are on holiday. This could be do with your health, or are number of different situations that you might face. When it comes to health we are talking about the questions that are asked for travel insurance underwriting, the ways that medical risk scores are calculated and how changes to your health before you travel can be really important for annual policies.

The key takeaways:

• Travel insurance underwriting takes into account your medical conditions as well as the healthcare support at your destination, when determining your options.
• Travel insurance premiums are generally very low but the cost of a claim to an insurer can be well over £1m depending upon your needs and the country you are in.
• Mental health is one of the most disclosed conditions for travel insurance and we look at what this means for customers.

Next time Matt Rann will be back with me and we will be talking about heart valve disease and what this means for your life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Debbie is sharing with us the trend that they are seeing that a higher BMI is often linked to long-term income protection claims. We are talking through what the data is showing, how this can be tricky to fully assess due to differences in medical record keeping and ways that the insurance industry can help people in a preventative and reactive way. 

The key takeaways:

• Claims data is showing that there is a link between long term IP claims and higher BMIs.
• Metabolic syndrome is quickly becoming a key area of focus for a person’s long term health.
• It’s important that we try to get the importance of income protection out to younger generations, who can often arrange this before health conditions start to develop.

Next time I will be joined by Paul Bevan and Rachel Edwards from Verisk to kick off 2024 with a deep dive into travel insurance underwriting. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

This episode is taking a different approach to usual. As you know we love protection insurance and getting as many people as possible to take it out. But, you will hear this time that both of us are very on the fence as to whether we would recommend someone includes TPD in their critical illness cover, or even take it out ourselves.

The key takeaways:

• In 2022 only 70% of TPD claims were successful.
• Watch out for TPD definitions and exclusions when you are reviewing a client’s critical illness cover.
• It’s worthwhile taking that bit of extra time to explain the limitation of TPD to your clients, so that there is less confusion over whether they can make a claim.

Next time I will be joined by Debbie Smith from Swiss Re and we will be talking about long term income protection claims and what the statistics are showing us. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking about wearables and things that your smartphone can do that is absolutely brilliant, though I do find it scary in some ways! I share how one of the apps that Lisa suggested to me, told me that my skin health is 10 years younger than I am. Firstly, amazing. Secondly, there was far more important information that it gave me but this is the one that made me do a girlie squeal.

The key takeaways:

• Wearable technology can create a baseline of your health and alert you if there is a change that could mean you are becoming ill.
• There are now apps on your phone that can detect your blood pressure, oxygen saturation and more, simply through the camera.
• Insurers have the potential to support people to get an early intervention to prevent a serious health condition from developing.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me and we are going to be talking about total permanent disability, what it is and how claims work. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are going to talk about when you might be able to still get protection insurance when you have prostate cancer. We are also having a chat about why the same isn’t the case for ‘female’ cancers and why women also tend to see exclusions on critical illness cover for family history of breast cancer, but the same isn’t the case for men with a family history of prostate cancer.

The key takeaways:

• There are times that life insurance can be arranged when someone has prostate cancer.
• To do underwriting research well you will need to know the initial and current PSA readings and Gleason scores.
• A case study of arranging life insurance for someone living with prostate cancer.

Next time Lisa Balboa from HannoverRe is joining us to discuss the latest in Insuretech and health data. We are going to be talking about how health technology can help with underwriting and long term support for policyholders. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are looking at the types of advice that we are seeing advisers giving, the differences in consumer behaviour across genders and different age groups, plus the most common disclosures that we see in protection insurance applications.

The key takeaways:

• Critical illness purchases are increasing, life insurance is reducing a bit and income protection is roughly the same.
• Data shows that it is still more men buying protection insurance than women, but we are seeing an uptake in women wanting income protection.
• Stress, anxiety, family history, back pain, high blood pressure and asthma, are some of the most disclosed conditions in protection insurance applications.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me and we are going to be talking about life insurance, critical illness and income protection for people that have had or currently have prostate cancer. There’s some really specific pieces of information that you need to know, to be able to research the best insurer for someone with this condition.. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

It’s important to make sure that you know your permissions before advising anyone that is not resident in the UK. This will be a mix of your compliance and your professional indemnity insurance. As an example, at Cura I know that my permissions are that I can provide advice to someone that is a UK citizen and/or someone that has a financial liability within the UK. If someone doesn’t fall into these categories, there needs to be further questions about why they are wanting to use a UK advice firm, rather than someone in their country of residence.

There’s a lot to consider!

The key takeaways:

• Financial liabilities in the UK can range from mortgages, to dependent children, to parents that are dependent on care home fees, and more.
• Make sure that you have a clear procedure to check clients against UK sanctions.
• Two case studies of expat cover using an international insurer and a UK insurer.

Next time Stephen Baldry from UnderwriteMe is set to join me to talk about the way that the advice market has been changing over recent years.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

During our chat we talk about the importance of building your recommendations for a client and being clear about what you suggest. But equally it’s just as important to be documenting what you are not doing. Why haven’t you recommended income protection? Write it down and if you don’t have an answer, then think about if you are really doing the best for your client.

The key takeaways:

• There are so many options for income protection that the market is quite complex, but it means that you have a much better ability to tailor products to your client.
• SSP is just over £3,000 to live on for 6 and a half months.
• Consumer research shows that the key things that 92% of parents are worried about are their children having broken bones or being diagnosed with cancer.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me for the first time in Season 8 and we will be talking about life insurance, critical illness and income protection for UK expats. There’s a lot to know in terms of compliance and also what you can and cannot place with UK insurers.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Last year the IPTF held their Income Protection Awareness Week that was a resounding success. Each day had a different focus on income protection to better help advisers working in the mortgage, protection and wealth space. They are back with this year’s IPAW starting on the 18 September at 12 noon. 

To get us all ready for it we have been chatting all things income protection in the most recent episode.

The key takeaways:

• Income protection sales are growing whilst life and critical illness cover policies are starting to slow down.
• Key areas for change are educating people at a younger age, the need for collaboration and the need for new perspectives in underwriting to reflect current social behaviour.
• Through adviser demand there are now more options for income protection than ever before.

You can sign up for this year’s IPAW at the IPTF website and you will be able to claim up to 5 hours CPD for the week.

Next time I will have Justin Harper with me from MetLife and we will be talking more about income protection. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Matt is taking us through the connections between kidney function and blood pressure, how family history of polycystic kidney disease can affect applications and how a GP’s perspective of chronic kidney disease can be quite different to an underwriters.

The key takeaways:

• Chronic kidney disease is measured upon ‘normal range’ of kidney function for people in their 20s up to their 40s.
• Insurers tend to use the standard readings for kidney functions of white european men, which can mean that the normal ranges for other ethnicities are not taken into account during underwriting.
• Two case studies of protection insurance arranged for people living with kidney disease.

This is our last episode of Season 7 and we are now taking a break for summer 2023. We already have everything lined up for the rest of the year. If you ever think of something that you want us to cover please do get in touch and I will put it in the schedule.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking through how much was been paid out in protection in 2022, the successful stats rate of different products, the biggest cause of claims and our thoughts on terminal illness cover too as the stats on these can be confusing.

We will also be talking about the awful times when insurance claims don’t pay out in the protection space. This situation is never nice for anyone. There are times when things don’t go right, but a lot of the time when a claim isn’t paid there is a valid reason.

The key takeaways:

• In 2022 £6.85bn was paid out in protection insurance claims.
• Terminal illness cover claims are a little tricky to monitor as the claims are not usually declined, they are postponed.
• Only 2% of claims were declined in 2022 across the market and more than of these were due to relevant disclosures not being included  in the original application.

Next time Matt Rann will be back with me and we will be talking about kidney disease and what this means for your life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking about a rare condition in this episode, one that can affect multiple organs in the body. Sarcoidosis affects 1-2 people in every 10,000 so it isn’t a condition that every adviser will come across during their work, but it’s important to know about it as terms could be anywhere from standard to a decline.

The key takeaways:

• Sarcoidosis is an autoimmune condition where inflamed swollen tissue develops in the body, often in the lungs.
• In mild cases no treatment is needed, but more severe cases could need lung or heart transplants.
• A case study of arranging life insurance for someone that has experienced sarcoidosis.

Next time Matt will be joining me again and we will be talking about claims statistics for life insurance and critical illness, what insurers have been paying out and why they sometimes don’t pay out.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

It’s incredibly interesting to hear from Lee that when he joined the finance sector over 30 years ago, the starting point of advice was protection insurance. That was what all the training focused on with the mindset that the very least you would do for someone is protection cover. Yet, here we are today with many of us trying to encourage people to write more protection. Why is that? What has changed to make protection seem like an add on rather than the core basis of financial planning?

The key takeaways:

• Collaboration between advisers from all specialisms is developing the best consumer outcomes.
• There are clear barriers to improving the perception of protection insurance even within the advice world, that must be addressed.
• We talk about places where you can go to get support to improve your protection advice, through informal networks and training.

Our focus this episode was to give you all an idea of something that is happening in the finance space that is exciting us, something that we would like to see changed and why, and then also something that we wish more people knew about the insurance world.

Next time Matt will be back with me and we will be talking about arranging life insurance, critical illness and income protection for people that have sarcoidosis. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

As well as lung cancer we go into a bit of a side tangent into debating terminal illness cover, which is a potential claim area for life insurance. We are fans of the intention of terminal illness cover, but we are both calling for a complete shake up of the way that it currently works.

The key takeaways:

• 72% of lung cancer cases are linked to smoking and the other 28% linked to environmental factors
• If a person has had lung cancer and is a smoker their cover will need to be place with specialist insurers
• Matt takes us through what the staging and grading of lung cancer means, as this is an essential part of the underwriting decision process

Next time we have Roy back with us and Lee Robertson from Octomembers. We will be sharing some of our musings from the finance world. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Hi everyone, we are back with quite a change of episode today to the usual content. I am talking with Lauren Garrett from the SEA Charity, an organisation that is dedicated to helping people that have experienced economic abuse.

Listening to what Lauren has to share is really eye opening as to the awful situations people can find themselves in and remember this isn’t something that just happens, it often happens gradually. There is no specific person that can be affected by this, anyone can be.

The key takeaways:

• Financial abuse falls within economic abuse, it is just one aspect of what a person can experience.
• As advisers there is a duty upon us to try and prevent economic abuse and there’s some tips on how to do this
• There is a huge call for the insurance worlds to modernise to the need for separation clauses as standard and flexibility of Trusts, to ensure that victims of economic abuse are not disadvantaged

Next time Matt Rann will be back with me and we will be talking about lung cancer and what this means for your life insurance, critical illness and income protection options. 

Take a look at these extra pieces from SEA:

• Consumer Duty Briefing
• Insurance and Economic Abuse

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Sickle cell is an inherited condition that can lead to some health complications and potentially a lower life expectancy. When we are supporting our clients that are living with this condition it is essential that we know the right questions to ask, to find the right insurer for them as soon as possible.

The key takeaways:

• Insurers will want to know what type of sickle cell disease the person has and if there have been any complications such as symptoms in the eyes and any crises.
• Options for critical illness cover and income protection can be quite limited for people that have been diagnosed with sickle cell disease.
• Someone that carries the sickle cell gene but does not have the condition, should not have difficulty in arranging life insurance, critical illness cover or income protection.

Next time I will be speaking with the SEA Charity about financial abuse and what we can do as advisers to potentially spot it and prevent it. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Pilots have usually looked at loss of license insurance before and this is a good policy, but more and more are starting to see the benefits of income protection as an alternative. As with anything like this there are pros and cons to both and I’m talking about all these options in this episode.

The key takeaways:

• You can see significant differences for terms on life insurance and critical illness cover if the flying is part of a person’s occupation or their hobby.
• Options for income protection massively differ between the types of pilot.
• A case study of arranging income protection for a commercial pilot.

Next time Matt Rann is going to be back with me and we are going to be talking about how to access insurance when you have sickle cell disease. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Ovarian cancer is usually diagnosed in women that are aged 50 or over, but it can be diagnosed at any age. It’s often not found quickly as the symptoms can be quite general and Matt gives a really clear example of symptoms that can indicate it’s best to go speak with a GP for a check up.

The key takeaways:

• You must know the staging and grading of the cancer, to get a clear indication of terms from the insurer.
• Ovarian cancer can potentially be linked to other conditions such as a high BMI, the BRCA gene, endometriosis, diabetes, breast and bowel cancer.
• A case study of a woman in her 40s that was arranged life insurance after ovarian cancer.

We have a number of exciting episodes coming up including deep dives into sickle cell anaemia, sarcoidosis, claims and the incredibly important topic of economic abuse.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

A Trust is designed to get the insurance payout to intended beneficiary of the policy. A key question for any adviser who doesn’t put a life insurance policy into Trust is, if you don’t know the beneficiary then is there any need for life insurance?

The key takeaways:

• Only 20% of life insurance policies are written into Trust in the UK
• Trusts aren’t just for people that are single or co-habiting, married people can need them too.
• The ability to write life insurance into Trust easily differs significantly between insurers

Next time we will have an episode focused upon value added benefits and how important and life changing these can be. These are non-contractual extras that UK insurers offer to their protection insurance customers and it can range from mental health support, to GP appointments right through to second medical opinions from experts in your condition.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Titled the ‘Written Off? report the institute have highlighted where things are not necessarily working well for consumers that are wanting to get insurance, when they have a mental health condition.

The key takeaways:

• They found that someone with mental health can potentially pay up to 27x the base premium for travel insurance
• 3 in 10 respondents did not disclose their mental health condition to insurers
• The inability to get insurance at an affordable price can further exacerbate mental health symptoms and lead to a lack of financial security

The protection insurance industry has made significant improvements in terms of mental health underwriting over the years. I have personally experienced this from when I first took out my insurances in 2010, compared to my applications in the last few years and even recently. But, the research shows that there is still a lot of distrust in the insurance world over how decisions are made and the fairness of decisions. 

I know many underwriters that make incredibly fair decisions of protection insurance applications detailing mental health. It’s our job to make sure that we are getting the message out to the public and organisations like the MMHPI about the good work that is being done. There may not always be solutions that all parties are happy with, but open and transparent discussions are key to us changing the way that the insurance sector is viewed.

Next time I will we will have Charlotte Rogers joining us, she is an adviser that is incredibly passionate about Trusts and making sure people know what can go wrong if they’re not in place. Tune in to hear her personal story and how it’s made her determined to have Trusts as a key part part of her advice.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are taking a look at the most common medical conditions that can lead to a rating or exclusion if someone has a relative that has a condition that the insurer asks about. When we say family medical history this is just the blood related parents and siblings, to the best of the applicants knowledge.

The key takeaways:

• A person with 1 parent that has type 2 diabetes has a 40% chance of developing the condition, if 2 parents have type 2 diabetes the risk increases to 70%
• Someone with a family medical history of colon cancer diagnosed under the age of 50, will generally see a minimum +50% rating for critical illness cover
• The BRCA gene is linked to increased breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer, as well as others

Next time I will be hosting an episode with Conor D’Arcy who is Head of Research and Policy at the Money and Mental Health Organisation. We will be talking about the findings in their recent report about how mental health and insurance are working (or not working) together..

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• There are sometimes options for standard rates for life insurance, for people living with HIV.
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• Personal critical illness cover and income protection for people living with HIV is here!
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• Group insurance can often offer valuable protection insurance without the need for medical underwriting at application or point of claim for life insurance and income protection, up to specific free medical underwriting limits.

Next time I will be be back with Matt Rann and we will be talking about family medical history, why it’s so important in protection insurance applications and why it’s different for men and women.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking about the numbers race with insurers competing to have the highest number of conditions offered, partial payments, children’s cover and the big risks that can come from replacing an existing critical illness policy with a new one.

The key takeaways:

• The number of conditions covered in a critical illness contract isn’t a clear indicator of quality, take a close look at claim definitions.
• 
  
• Standalone critical illness cover comes with a survivability clause, if the person dies from the condition within a certain period of time, the policy will not pay out.
• 
  
• When you replace a critical illness policy with a new one, you need to make sure that you know the risks of doing so.

Next time I will be hosting a mini episode where I talk about updates to HIV underwriting within the UK. The last time I did a HIV focused episode was in June 2020 and you will be surprised by how much has changed.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking about objection handling, decline conversations, vulnerable clients, stepping outside of comfort zones and more. 

The key takeaways:

• Building confidence in advising on protection insurance.
• Ways to change your communications to support people with protected characteristics.
• Our views on mandating protection insurance qualifications.

Next time we are going to be doing an episode upon family medical history and how this can influence protection insurance applications. Matt Rann will be back with me and if you have any specific conditions that you would like us to focus on, please get in touch by the 20 January and we will include it for you.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

The key takeaways:

• A case study of arranging critical illness cover for someone living with multiple sclerosis.
• 
  
• A case study of arranging critical illness cover for someone having experienced a strong mental health history.
• 
  
• A case study of helping a person claim on a critical illness cover when they had been told that they were not eligible too.

Next time we have the start of season 7 upon us and an episode format that I’m quite excited by. For the first time myself and Roy will become the interviewees, with Setul Mehta joining us as a guest host. This is the first time that we will be doing this and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out, let us know what you think.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

In this episode we are looking at how value added benefits work during a policy, at the point of a claim and after. Are they the new area of competition for insurers? What’s the reason behind offering them? Within the industry we can clearly see the positives of value adds, but we are often communication with consumers that are cynical of the insurance world and we should be prepared for answering challenges that we might face.

The key takeaways:

• Watch how you write up value added benefits in your recommendations, remember that they are non-contractual!
• Value added benefits can help identify issues early so that people can get treatment more quickly and hopefully stop illnesses from becoming too severe.
• These benefits can reduce strain on the NHS by giving people access to medical professionals, but don’t confuse it with private medical insurance.

Next time we have Alan Knowles joining us to do another one of his masterclasses this time on how to provide critical illness cover advice. We will be going through case studies to give you tips on how to get the best options for critical illness cover for your clients.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

In this episode we have Martin Stewart joining us from London Money, one of the key mortgage adviser firms in the UK. He is here to give us his insight of what the mortgage market is doing, how it has changed over the years and his thoughts over how mortgage and protection insurance go hand in hand. A clear view from all of us is that people are not putting enough financial protection in place to cope with shocks that we can all face in life.

The key takeaways:

• Consumers are asking us questions that for an adviser seem simple, which shows that we are not educating people right.
• 
  
• The average person in the UK has 3 weeks of savings that they can live on, if they are ill and unable to work. 
• 
  
• People need the safety net of protection insurance as the NHS and state benefits in the UK are not a certainty.

Next time we have Matt Rann back with us and we are going to be talking about value added services with protection insurance. We are going to be looking at what they are, why they are seen as a positive development for insurers and consumers alike, and the role they can play at the point of a claim.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Hi everyone, we are back with Matt Rann and talking about high net worth protection insurance applications. We are talking about what makes a case considered to be high net worth and how advisers and underwriters might classify these differently. We are having a chat about joint life second death insurance, gift planning and what a retrocessionaire is.

The key takeaways:

• High net worth clients do not always mean high net worth policies.
• 
  
• Most insurers have large case teams that typically handle policies with value over £1m. 
• 
  
• Keep an eye out for the gifting of terminal illness payouts if you have done a policy for gift or IHT planning.

Next time we have Martin Stewart joining us from the London Money group. He is going to be talking about the mortgage market, why protection insurance is more important than ever, plus his question about why do we need the FCA Consumer Duty principle, surely we’ve all been doing these things already?

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We are talking about adapting approaches in your sales techniques to bring protection right 

The key takeaways:

• Consumer Duty requirements are not about reinventing the wheel, it’s making sure that we are empowering customers to make the right decisions.
• Advising on protection insurance isn’t just about protecting the client, it’s making sure that you are also protecting your business by doing a complete job for their financial security. 
• As an industry we need to do more to encourage younger generations to see the value of protection, especially income protection.

You can read the full report here https://www.a-m-i.org.uk/knowledge-centre/viewpoint/

AMI Viewpoint is consumer and adviser research involving 3,000 UK adults and 254 IFAs and mortgage advisers.

Next time we have Matt Rann back with us and we are going to be talking about high net worth protection insurance. We have a good chat about how ‘jumbo’ insurances can result in different underwriting outcomes than lower sum assured cases.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

We talk about who can be trustees on a policy and the difficulties that can happen if the wrong person is picked. Traditionally Trusts have been positioned as being a way to ringfence claims from IHT, but Ruth shares that less than 5% of deaths in the UK result in an IHT liability. 

The key takeaways:

• 1 in 3 people are risking their insurance payout without a Trust, if they are not married
• 
  
• Beneficiary nominations that are currently available with Guardian and Royal London, are quick and simple online, there’s no reason not to do them.
• 
  
• Trusts mean that an insurance claim is paid more quickly and to the intended people, without having to wait for probate.

Next time Matt Rann is back with me and we are going to be talking about high net worth clients and how protection insurance underwriting can change as we start to look at higher value policies.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

High cholesterol often comes hand in hand with other conditions and it is picked up, but there are no specific symptoms of high cholesterol which can mean that a lot of damage can be done before someone realises that they have it.

The key takeaways:

• High cholesterol is linked to an increased risk of stroke, heart attack and vascular dementia.
• Broadly speaking for protection insurance high cholesterol under 5 is seen as ok, and over 6 is seen as high. This isn’t set in stone!
• Familial hypercholesterolaemia can have quite an influence on the insurance options that are available to people.

Next time we have Ruth Gilbert with us who will be talking about Trusts and the Payout Planner that is available with some insurers. This is sure to be another area that will be seen as a key example of you doing right by your customer, when it comes to the Consumer Duty principle.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my 13 hour CPD Protection Insurance in Practice course here and 1 hour CPD Protection Competency Exam here.

Alain takes us through his time working in lead generation and his new focus of improving industry standards when it comes to consumer data and consent. He has some pretty shocking statistics to share about how much cold calling happens in the UK and we talk about how this often targets the vulnerable and elderly, but it can catch any of us out.

The key takeaways:

• The FCA Consumer Duty principle will be very clear that you must have oversight of where leads are coming from.
• To improve consumer data standards we must all work together: lead generators, advisers and insurers.
• Ignoring consumer data rules can lead to hefty fines!

 From chatting with Alain it’s clear that consumer data and the journey that it goes on, if you are buying leads, is going to gain more and more attention. It’s not something to try and stick a patch on and hope that it will be alright, this is just the start of how firms are going to need to prove that they are handling client data responsibly.

Next time Matt Rann is back and we are going to be talking about high cholesterol and what that can mean for insurance, especially when we factor in long-term health complications.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We are talking about culture, storytelling and many other aspects of communication, with Sue sharing her new podcast series of 6 episodes to give you insights in this area. They’re about 15 minutes long and involve interviews with SME owners, a charity and more.  Plus there is a ‘Better Wellbeing Competition’ with Legal & General for two SMEs to win a day’s worth of internal communications consultancy with Sue.

The key takeaways:

• Culture engagement and communications of employee wellbeing are not always the skillset of the entrepreneurs that set up small companies.
• SMEs are overwhelmed and many owners are wearing multiple hats to make the business work. Having a robust employee wellbeing programme can help to manage the culture of the organisation.
• L&G have completed their Wellbeing at Work barometer and found that 2 in 5 SME’s talk to advisers about employee wellbeing, the benefits are being seen we now need to focus on engaging the other 3/5!

Next time Alain Desmier is joining us from Contact State to talk about lead generation, consumer consent online and the upcoming Consumer Duty.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

In our latest podcast Matt Rann has joined me to talk about organ donations. With Organ donation week we felt that it was a good idea to have a focus upon how giving or receiving an organ donation can influence a protection insurance application. We are talking about technical medical terms that can help you to do your research thoroughly to get your client covered.

The key takeaways:

• It can be tricky to get personal life insurance, critical illness cover or income protection after receiving an organ donation.
• For kidney transplants there are at least 6 key pieces of information that you need, to be able to research the market.
• There is a big difference in underwriting outcomes if a person was a donor or someone that has received a donation. 

 We have quite a good discussion about per mille ratings and how insurers might use this to determine the price of the policy. We also have a chat about how each insurer does these ratings differently, so it becomes quite a barrel of laughs to try and figure out what the potential cost will be.

Next time Sue Clarkson is joining us to talk about SMEs and employee benefits, and how insurance can be a key asset for UK firms.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We have Tom Baigrie from LifeSearch with us for this first episode talking about the campaigning that he has done over the past 20 years, to improve consumer outcomes. Tom takes us through some of the most recent projects he is taking on including his passion to embed mystery shoppers into the analysis of broker firms and his thoughts on protection insurance and the upcoming FCA Consumer Duty, plus more.

The key takeaways:

• Marketing is not working, the protection market is not growing.
• Protection isn’t easy if you’re not doing it every day.
• We need to build networks where protection brokers are seen as specialists that other advisers are able to reach out to, and to show the worth of protection. 

We all agree on a key theme that we must work together as an industry to make change. It can’t just be advisers making efforts, and it can’t just be insurers either, it is working together that will lead to better customer outcomes. Something that is already being proven through the Protection Distributors Group, Income Protection Taskforce and the Access to Insurance working groups.

Next time Matt Rann is back with me and we are chatting about arranging protection insurance for people that have given or received an organ donation.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We have some super fun guests on our podcast episode today. Grace, Theodore, Sophia, Alexander, Kaydee, Kara and Zachary. The Cura Kids! It always stands out to me that the average reading age in the UK is that of a 9 year old. So does what we say to people and the documents that we give them make sense?

The kids range from age 4 to 12. I’ve done this specifically so that we get the older ones that are almost 8 through to 12, to give us a really good idea of how the average person views our terminology. The ones under 8 are here for, let’s face it, the cuteness factor.

This episode is not a super long one, I didn’t want to overwhelm the kids and there is a limit as to how much I could say insurance jargon to them without it getting super super boring. I made sure that I told them all how brilliant they were doing, that they had the brilliant job of being teachers for once, telling us adults where we are getting it wrong and being too confusing.

The key takeaways:

• The average reading age in the UK is that of a 9 year old, none of our guests were able to understand our technical jargon.
• The one thing that the kids got close to getting ‘right’ was what a policy lapsing means.
• That when we use terms like serious or critical illness the kids did wonder about cancer (included in CIC/SIC contracts) but they also thought covid too (not included in CIC/SIC contracts).

 I appreciate that this was not a scientific experiment but what I can share is that out of the older children taking part they are all familiar with very serious medical conditions in their close family members. As an example my dad has Parkinsons and isn’t particularly well, my children see him most days and they didn’t think of this when I asked them about critical or serious illnesses. Others have experienced close family members with cancers and strokes. Maybe sometimes when we experience something and we see people living with a condition or recovering from it it can become almost normalised, so we don’t then see it as something out of the ordinary. It brings an extra dynamic to wondering if the reason that critical illness and income protection is sold so much less than life insurance, is because some health conditions now feel as if they are part and parcel of life.

We are back in September for Season 6 of the podcast. I am so pleased with how the podcast is being seen as a useful resource by advisers. I even spoke with a compliance consultant recently who said that she’d heard of me because one of the firms she takes cares of uses us for their IDD CPD.

So far we are at:

• A bank over 52 hours CPD
• Over 6,000 unique listeners
• Over 13,000 downloads
• We’ve issued over 1,200 CPD certificates, that’s over 1,000 hours of CPD!

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

The condition can be linked to genetics, but it can also be the result of experiencing a traumatic event. It is mostly diagnosed within cities and in some ethnic minorities too. Experiencing schizophrenia is not having multiple personalities and you might find that some people feel very uncomfortable using the term schizophrenia, as there is quite a lot of stigma surrounding the name.

I hope that by seeing the statistic below you will see that this isn’t some condition that is far removed from us, that many of us easily speak to well over 100 clients, so the chances are that we will speak to someone at some point that has experienced this. Schizophrenia is a long term health condition but it is possible in some cases to recover from it.

The key takeaways:

• It is estimated that approximately 1 in 100 people experience schizophrenia.
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people living with schizophrenia.
• Why it can be difficult to arrange income protection, even with a mental health exclusion on the policy claims set.

Next time we have a very special treat for you all on the podcast, it was super fun to record with our unique guests. As the final episode of Season 5 before our summer break, I hope that you tune in and find it as useful as I did.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

As a protection insurance adviser I found it really weird to suddenly realise that there is an insurer that backs the insurers that I arrange policies with. Granted this was quite a while ago now, but it was a little bit after I started my career that this was pointed out to me. Coming from a purely protection insurance space and not being an adviser as my starting job, I only learned about this once I started to experience quite strong premium loadings for clients. We would challenge decisions and the insurers would say, sorry it’s what the reinsurers are telling us to do.

I think that there are probably quite a few people who don’t understand how reinsurers and insurers work, both from within our industry and outside of it too. Quite often I explain it to clients and I’ve yet to meet one who knew about this interplay already.

The key takeaways:

• Reinsurers set the core underwriting manuals that insurers then use to build their own philosophies.
• Reinsurers are a vital part of the insurance industry as they hold the majority of the financial risk, enabling insurers to offer protection insurance to more and more people.
• Risk pooling in group, genetics and potentially socio-economic groupings are key areas for ongoing debate.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me and will be talking about getting insurance when you have schizophrenia.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

When we think about the Armed Forces it’s probably quite clear as to the risks that insurers are worried about. The main one is of course that there is a much higher risk of dying than there is for someone that is sat at a desk all day. But it isn’t as simple as that. Yes, someone that is actively deployed to a warzone, or has high risk duties like bomb disposal, is at more of an immediate risk of danger. There are however many people in the Armed Forces who are not in this position, they are not under active deployment and they might in fact be doing a desk based job.

Critical illness cover is a really interesting area too, with premium ratings and exclusions sometimes added to policies. Income protection can be even more interesting especially when you consider the employment benefits that you get from working in the Armed Forces.

The key takeaways:

• Breakdowns of how per mille loadings work and the types of exclusions that might be put on critical illness cover.
• Make sure you tell your clients about the JPAF0100 form, it’s going to save them a lot of money!
• Two case study clients getting life insurance and income protection for armed forces personnel.

Next time Roy is back with me and we are being joined by Tim Smith from Hannover Re. He will be talking to us about how reinsurers fit into the protection insurance sector, the differences between personal and group underwriting, risk pooling and access to insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

The Financial Vulnerability Taskforce is a professional body that has been set up to help consumers and advisers better understand what vulnerabilities are, and the good practices that should be followed to address these concerns. They have a Charter that contains 9 statements that members are expected to actively promote and support. Many firms are unsure of how to support vulnerable clients, but they may well already be doing so and just haven’t had the opportunity to recognise and write down what they are doing.

The key takeaways:

• Last year £137 billion was lost to financial fraud in the UK.
• Everyone is financially vulnerable now and/or in the future.
• Signposting can be a key part of supporting your vulnerable clients.

In the next episode I’ll be talking about insurance and the Armed Forces. Sometimes getting the insurance is quite straightforward, other times it can be pretty tricky. There will be some interesting case studies for you to hear about too.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We talk about genetic and predictive testing, what does and doesn’t need to be said to insurers, and why Huntington’s is not listed as a claimable condition in most critical illness contracts. Many people that are diagnosed with Huntington’s will unfortunately pass away within 20 years of diagnosis, and as well as this being a significant reality to face, it also means that accessing insurance within the standard market can become quite limited.

The key takeaways:

• Huntington’s is usually diagnosed between the ages of 30 and 50.
• There is a big difference between diagnostic and predictive testing for Huntington’s and this is crucial to know when applying for insurance.
• Two case studies of arranging life insurance for people that have a family history of Huntington’s disease, and one also had the positive gene for Huntington’s too.

Next time I have Keith Richards from The Financial Vulnerability Taskforce. The episode will focus upon the need for advisers to be able to spot vulnerability, from many different angles, to ensure that clients are truly looked after. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

You might wonder why the need for dedicated grief services are needed, and it becomes much clearer when Catherine says they had nearly 50k conversations in 2021. That is approximately 136 grief support conversations for every day of last year.

The key takeaways:

• It’s ok to not know what to say to someone experiencing grief, the important thing is to say something, show that someone cares.
• Grief counselling is different to mental health support. 
• Around 40% of Grief Chat’s webchat conversations happen with men, which is much higher than other non-anonymous routes.

Next time I have Matt Rann back with me and we are going to be chatting about Huntington’s and how this diagnosis can affect insurance applications. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Since my early teens, I have been diagnosed with a number of health conditions, all of which I’m quite open about. I’ve made the decision to talk openly about them in the hope that this might challenge people's assumptions about the conditions and what they might mean for a person. 

An interesting point that was raised is that most claims for income protection are related to the back or mental health, and therefore this is taken into account when underwriters make their decisions.

The key takeaways:

• Hypermobility, mental health and autism can influence access to income protection.
• Insurers are trying to improve options to accessing income protection if you have a mental health condition.
• Group insurance is a great way to get access to income protection, often with a good level that has no exclusions. 

Next time I have Roy McLoughlin back with me and we are talking to Catherine Betley from Grief Chat. The episode will focus upon the need for clear access to trained counsellors to help people if they or a loved one have needed to make an insurance claim. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

For advisers it’s important to know that speaking about testicular cancer can be an incredibly personal conversation. It could be that the client you speak with has in a sense moved on from their diagnosis, and has no ongoing complications from the cancer. For others, they might have needed to have both testicles removed and lost the chance to start a family, which could have led to some mental health considerations. As with any client and situation, it’s essential to treat them as an individual and speak sensitively about their circumstances.

The key takeaways:

• There are 6 cases of testicular cancer diagnosed every day in the UK.
• When a cancer is diagnosed there is usually a staging and grading given for the tumour. For testicular cancer there are two staging and gradings that are given.
• The prime age for diagnosis is 30-34 years old, this is not an ‘old’ person’s condition.

Next time I have Matt Rann back with me and we are doing something a bit quirky. I hope you like it, it could be a bit emotional for me, but I think it is really important to do. Watch this space! 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Kevin has been a part of the finance world for many years now, first starting at Nationwide advising on mortgages, leading onto his role as an adviser at LifeSearch that quickly changed to include PR work. Kevin was drawn to PR as he found that speaking with journalists led to him being featured in the press, which then resulted in clients ringing up wanting to chat to him for advice. PR isn’t just about the press, there are so many ways that you can build your profile in a way that matches what you want and need to support your career.

The key takeaways:

• “Plane lands safely is not new”. We are all doing great work but simply doing our jobs isn’t enough to get a feature in the press.
• It is a myth that the press only feature negative insurance stories.
• Marketing is a part of your PR strategy, so even if you don’t think you are doing PR, you are.

Next time I have Matt Rann back with me and we are going to be discussing testicular cancer and insurance. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

With it being Eating Disorder Awareness Week we felt that this episode was a key one to do. In fact, on Wednesday of this week I was tagged in a twitter thread of someone that was saying they have an eating disorder and are fed up with insurers and how they make people feel. I have of course reached out and we are now chatting about the next steps that they can take.

The key takeaways:

• There are between 1.25 and 3.4 million people living with an eating disorder in the UK.
• Out of all of the psychiatric disorders, the highest death rates are linked to eating disorders.
• A case study of a man accessing insurance after living with bulimia.

Next time I have Roy McLoughlin and Kevin Carr joining me and we are going to be talking about public relations and insurance. We will be talking about negative news stories, the role of PR in improving our industry and our companies, awards, and the biggest problems that our sector is facing right now. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

In this session I am talking about cervical cancer with Matt Rann and we are discussing the common causes of this cancer, the types of questions that insurers will ask for protection insurance applications and the potential outcomes.

The key takeaways:

• There are close to nine cases of cervical cancer diagnosed each day in the UK.
• The types of treatment that may have been done to remove the cancer.
• A case study of a woman getting life insurance after having cervical cancer.

Next time Matt is joining me again and we are going to be talking about eating disorders and how they are assessed by insurers.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

In this webinar Kathryn, Lisa Balboa (Hannover Re) and Fraser Ballantine (Zurich), all came together to talk with colleagues about mental health and insurance. The session was hosted by John Brazier from Cover magazine and attendees included reinsurers, insurers and charity members.

We explore everything from application questions, granular modelling, risk analysis, and how all of this can come across and feel to someone that is living with a mental health condition and wanting insurance.

The key takeaways:

• We need more data! To make positive change for accessing insurance when you have a mental health condition, actuaries need data to analyse, potentially even positive lifestyle factors e.g. sleep patterns, exercise habits, etc.
• Mental health questions and support are far better than they used to be, but there is still a long way to go.
• How pricing is calculated for individuals living with specific mental health conditions.

Next time I have Matt Rann back with me and we are talking about cervical cancer. It is great to have Matt back for his first episode of 2022 helping us to deep dive into how underwriting works.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

In this episode we talk about what happens in terms of support for people living with a mental health condition when they make a claim on insurance, and more importantly the extra support they can access from the policy even if they don’t make a claim. We also talk about how mental health needs to be considered with every claim, as these are times when people are often at their most vulnerable.

The key takeaways:

• Insurers now often offer extra support services for people that have policies with them e.g. mental health support lines, access to remote GPs, fitness and nutrition plans.
• Mental health causes a large amount of income protection claims and insurers partner with specialist firms to help people that are struggling to work.
• Mental health support can be accessed by policyholders but it’s important to be aware that there are times that this service will not be the most appropriate option.

The next episode of the podcast is going to be a bit different. We are hosting a webinar to round off this mental health in life insurance week, and the audio from it will be added as our next episode. I hope that you have found our walkthrough of insurance and mental health useful.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We are talking about how insurers decide who can have what insurance and what price it will be. Actuaries take a look at huge amounts of general population data and analyse this to help them determine what might happen to these people in the future. They use data to produce statistics about how likely it is that person A that is X years old, will become seriously ill or die. 

It is then the role of the underwriting developers to look at this data and decide what risks an insurer can and cannot take. For mental health this could be looking at the data on mild anxiety and deciding that the insurer can accept someone that lives with this at ‘normal’ terms (the basic premium). Or it might be that they look at data that shows that some conditions are linked to a statistically higher risk of ill health or death, with the decision to then charge a higher premium to.

The key takeaways:

• Insurers take broad population studies to understand how certain circumstances influence a person’s chance of being seriously ill or dying. This is then used to form many of their decisions, but they will also do what they can to listen to individual circumstances.
• An explanation as to why bipolar disorder is a condition that usually results in an increased premium for life insurance, and leads to some difficulty in getting income protection cover.
• A clear example of how a premium might be increased for life insurance, due to a mental health condition. 

Without going into a deep data chat this episode helps us to see how insurers come to their decisions, based upon the way that the industry works at the moment, and upon the data that is available now. It’s always important to remember that underwriters are regularly reviewing what an insurer offers, and what is or is not available today, could change tomorrow. 

We have Vanessa Sallows (Legal & General) and Monica Garcia (Monica Garcia Consulting) with us in our podcast tomorrow to discuss what mental health support there is for insurance policyholders before, during and after a claim.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We are talking to Phil Jeynes from Reassured, Alan Knowles from Cura Financial Services and Neal Cross from MoneySupermarket for their insights.

The key takeaways:

• People living with mental health conditions might not feel comfortable talking to someone about their medical history.
• Firms should adapt their communications and link with specialist partners, to support people that are living with mental health, to access insurance in a way that suits them best.
• There is work being done to encourage the use of iGPRs to better support insurance application underwriting times, to help reduce some of the worry that can potentially build during this time.

Within the insurance world there can be a mindset that when applying for insurance it is advised vs non-advised vs price comparison site. In this episode we are stepping away from any kind of judgement of how someone chooses to get insurance, and focusing upon how each of these approaches to getting insurance, helps different people in different ways. 

Tomorrow we are going to be talking with Lisa Balboa (Hannover Re) and Fraser Ballantine (Zurich) about how underwriting decisions are made by insurers.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We have a lot of industry experts joining us this week and we start today with Lynn Beattie aka Mrs Mummypenny. Lynn is a finance expert and is always looking for the best ways to manage money, to protect her financial future and also make sure that anything she is paying for is worth it.

The key takeaways:

• Applying for insurance is complicated, even for someone that works within finances, the wording is confusing and knowing where to turn to for help is hard. 
• It can be worrying to know how much mental health will and won’t affect insurance applications and how insurers will view your health.
• The relief from knowing that you have insurance in place to protect your income and to protect your family if you die, is priceless.

This episode is part of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Mental Health Working Group’s efforts to improve access to insurance for people living with mental health conditions. Next time we are going to be discussing different ways you access insurance with Phil Jeynes (Reassured), Alan Knowles (Cura Financial Services) and Neal Cross (Money Supermarket).

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

The key takeaways:

• We can make real positive change by ensuring that reinsurers, insurers, trade bodies and advisers are involved in working parties together.
• There is growth in clients wanting to understand the ethical and social behaviour of providers, and we should be prepared to have this to hand.
• eGPRs are a key focus for change this year.

Next time we are starting a Mental Health Awareness Week in association with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Mental Health Working Group. From 31st January to 3 February we will be releasing a podcast each day, about mental health and the different stages of insurance. There will also be a webinar on Friday 4th, keep a look out for the registration details.

To kick things off Lynn Beattie aka Mrs Mummypenny is joining me to talk about what it feels like to apply for insurance. We talk about things that can trigger someone wanting insurance, how mental health can play a part in a person’s decision to get cover and what it feels like to have insurance in place.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Now, I know that listening to me talking about lots of numbers and premium pricing, is maybe not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve hopefully kept it nice and interesting for you. We will also be putting out a blog with tables that clearly show all the pricing.

The key takeaways:

• The cost of life, critical illness cover and income protection start to jump up once you are in your 40s.
• An example of clearly explaining the difference between reviewable and guaranteed premiums for long-term protection.
• The importance of an adviser being very careful over the use of the word ‘guaranteed’.

Next year we are back and kicking the year off with a Mental Health Awareness Week with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. For this week we are going to be putting out four podcasts about how mental health can be affected at different stages of the insurance journey. We will then also have a live webinar where you can quiz an adviser, actuary and underwriter all about mental health.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

This podcast is definitely not about telling you how much you should drink or advocating that you go teetotal. I didn’t drink for about 8 years with having my kids and breastfeeding, and I actually quite enjoyed it, but I did miss having a gin every now and then. In this episode we are focusing upon the questions that you need to be aware of when applying for protection insurance.

The key takeaways:

• Most insurers tend to be ok with up to 30 units of alcohol per week.
• Don’t assume that if your client says that they only drink on special occasions, that they have never been told to reduce their alcohol consumption. It can make a big difference to what is on offer.
• A case study of arranging protection insurance for someone that was previously hospitalised for alcohol dependency.

Next time I have Roy McLoughlin with me and we are joined by Peter Hamilton, to talk about his work in improving access to insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We focus on areas of business vulnerability, the need for advice, the impact of covid and how businesses can plan for the future with things like business and group protection.

The key takeaways:

• 75% of businesses have not heard about relevant life insurance or executive income protection, and 84% would like to know more about it.
• 72% of businesses are willing to spend £50 or more per month on cover and over half are willing to spend over £250 per month, over a quarter willing to spend over £2k per month.
• Only 18% of businesses have life insurance in place, to cover the loss of a shareholder.

I am not shy about being quite averse to statistics, I like stories, but the report is really an interesting read and the parts on different conversation starters are a good way to build confidence in approaching these topics. I recommend giving it a look over.

Next time I have Matt Rann back with me and we are going to be talking about alcohol and insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Lupus is a condition that usually affects women far more than men, with women nine times more likely to be diagnosed with the condition. Symptoms can involve fatigue, a skin rash, hair loss, and much more including difficulties with the kidneys.

The key takeaways:

• Roughly 1 in every 1000 living in the UK have lupus.
• Lupus is caused by having too many antibodies within the immune system.
• Lupus can be hereditary but it can also be triggered by hormones e.g. puberty, pregnancy, menopause. It can also be triggered by a viral infection, sunlight and some medications.

Next time I have Jeff Woods from Legal & General joining me, alongside Roy McLoughlin, to talk about Legal & General’s latest State of the Nation report. It’s a deep dive into insurance and SMEs. I’ve gone through it and it really is an interesting read and shows just how much we, as an industry, are missing opportunities to promote business and group protection.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Following on from the recent Income Protection Task Force week, protection insurance and wealth planning feels like a natural mix. If you haven’t seen the sessions yet, check out Wealth Wednesday on YouTube, with Setul Mehta, Gemma Darcy, Victor Sacks, Mike Allison and Daniel Weaver.

The key takeaways:

• The concept of using income protection to protect the bank of mum and dad.
• The use of protection insurance when taking early pension drawdowns.
• Using a cashflow model to show a client and yourself what can happen to the financial plan if income protection isn’t in place.

Next time Matt Rann will be joining me again and we will be focusing upon arranging insurance when you are living with lupus. There’s also a real need to make sure that you are very clear about whether the person you are speaking to has lupus or if they are a carrier of the gene, as it can really alter the insurances that will be available.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

This episode is providing a background to these different approaches to adviser remuneration, there’s pros and cons to each, and I hope that you think it is a balanced account of what they are.

The key takeaways:

• Why some firms offer fee-based advice and others work on a commission-based model.
• The difference between indemnity and non-indemnity insurance.
• The importance of transparency and client choice.

Next time Roy McLoughlin is back and we have Andy Woollon from Zurich, chatting to us about the role of protection insurance in intergenerational wealth planning. I find this side of advice fascinating and I hope that it gives you some more ideas too.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

The key takeaways:

• There are 250,000 living with blood cancer in the UK.
• There are different types of blood cancer: leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN).
• A case study of life insurance for someone living with CLL phenotypes.

We also have a  brief discussion of someone’s right to forget that they have had cancer, in France and Belgium. This is something that is not yet done in the UK, it is an interesting concept, it would open up the options to a lot of people to get insurance and we discuss why that would be a good thing, and also the knock-on effects it would have across the market.

Next time I am going to be doing an Inbetweenysode. There has been a lot of chatter recently about advisers taking fees or a commission for their work. I am going to do a shortish episode about this, focusing upon explaining both routes.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

This episode is so important and came with quite a shock to me. Matt Rann had told me that he would like to do an episode on skin cancer and I agreed that it would be a good area to cover. For me, I think there is sometimes a misconception that skin cancer is a ‘lesser’ cancer and will not affect insurance applications as much as something like breast cancer. The shock came from Matt, when he started explaining to me that his brother had died from skin cancer. 

This is not an episode to be missed. We talk about making sure that you wear suntan lotion, even in the UK when it is cloudy, as skin cancer can do significant harm to the body even if it just looks like a small lump or blemish on the outside.

The key takeaways:

• Skin cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the UK.
• The amount of people diagnosed with skin cancer has increased, more than any other cancer, in the last decade.
• A case study client with atypical mole syndrome that needed life insurance to cover his mortgage.

Roy McLoughlin is back with me next time and I am quite excited as we should be having a face to face meet up beforehand. If the weather behaves, it might be a barbecue at the Knowles house later this week (with suntan lotion to hand!).

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

65% of women surveyed believe that income protection is relevant to them, versus only 35% of men that felt it is worthwhile

As we talk through the findings, Jo helps us to understand the way that women tend to see the value of income protection more than men, yet less women than men take up and engage with this policy type. We talk about how women traditionally tend to address health concerns early on, in contrast to their ‘invincible’ male counterparts, which means we really should be shouting from the rooftops about how group support services can help them and their immediate family.

The key takeaways:

• Some reasons for people not engaging with group income protection include not understanding what the policy is, their partner’s sorting out all the finance stuff, and fear that employers might learn too much about their health.
• Messages about group insurance support services are not often filtered to employees well, being lost amongst all the noise of employment contracts and onboarding procedures.
• Storytelling that demonstrates the benefits of engaging with group support services, is where we can show how income protection isn't’ just about money, it’s about wellbeing too.

Next time, Matt Rann is back with me and we are chatting about skin cancer and how it can affect your insurance options. I think people are often surprised at how much someone having had skin cancer can alter the terms on offer. I also think a lot of people are shocked when they hear that you should wear suncream everyday in the UK. Yes, even though we only get 5 days of sunshine a year, you should always have suncream on.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Matt is joining me to chat about accessing insurance when someone is transgender. As with many things the insurance world has made clear growth in how it underwrites insurance applications for people that are transgender. It’s not yet perfect, but it’s much better than it was and we talk through how things have changed over the years.

The key takeaways:

• There are approximately 600,000 people that are transgender or non-binary within the UK.
• Transgender is not a mental health condition, but you might end up having to answer questions as if it is, in an insurance application form.
• A case study detailing life insurance and income protection for a transgender man.

Next time, I have Roy McLoughlin and Jo Elphick from Legal & General joining me. We are going to be chatting about group insurance, income protection and some research that shows the differences in how men and women approach these areas. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Roy McLoughlin is back with me and we are discussing the common objections that he hears within the pensions space, and how these seem to mirror objections to protection insurance too.

The key takeaways:

• Common objections are, “I’m too young”, “It’s too expensive”, “It won’t happen to me”.
• The average cost of an income protection policy is £1 a day.
• You need to tailor your advice recommendation to match what the client cares about and there is a fine balance between disturbance and scaremongering.

Next time, I am speaking with Matt Rann for his first outing of Season 4. We are going to be chatting about accessing insurance when you are transgender. With us just having had PRIDE month, it feels like now is a good time to dispel some myths around service and potential terms of insurance. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

In the first episode I have Peter Maynard with me from Select X, talking about his career in underwriting. We chat about what an underwriting manual looks like, the types of risk that they include, how underwriters use them and the role of automated underwriting.

The key takeaways:

• Automated systems are good, but you can’t beat a human underwriter!
• Underwriting manuals are technical guides of how to assess risk, but there should be some wiggle room in decisions.
• The more you know about a person’s ‘risk’, the more likely you are to get a realistic indication of insurance terms.

Next time, Roy McLoughlin is back with me for his first outing of season 4. 

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

As an adviser, I know about the rehabilitation support that is on offer with group income protection, but do I really know what it is? When does it kick in? Who is actually stepping in and giving the support? What does the support look like?

The key takeaways:

• 90% of people that get support within 4 weeks of ill health, are able to return to work.
• People that do not get rehabilitation support within 26 weeks of becoming ill, are shown to have only a 5% chance of returning to work.
• Two case studies of people that received rehabilitation support. 

I will be back soon, speaking with Peter Maynard from Select X. Our focus will be on how underwriting manuals are developed, how they work with underwriting philosophies and their role in access to insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website, thanks to our sponsors Octo Members.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

We are chatting about what diabetes is and how it affects the body, the potential complications that someone can experience and the insurance underwriting terms. 

The key takeaways:

• Type 1 diabetes can affect all areas of the body and there are specific complications that can occur in the heart, eyes, feet and kidneys.
• The key things that underwriters need to know, to give you a potential indication of terms.
• A case study of arranging life insurance and income protection, for someone living with type 1 diabetes.

I will be back in a couple of weeks with Alan Knowles. He is back with one of his masterclasses and this time the focus is going to be on critical illness cover.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

If you want to know more about how to arrange protection insurance, take a look at my new Protection Insurance in Practice course here.

Katharine takes us through claims statistics, how free medical underwriting works, the benefits that an employer can access through these insurances and much more. 

The key takeaways:

• Group insurers paid £100 million in claims relating to covid in 2020.
• How group insurance can increase access to insurance, for people living with health conditions.
• The benefits to both employers and employees from arranging group cover.

I will be back in a couple of weeks with Matt Rann, and we will be chatting about diabetes.

A big part of this session is focused upon adviser skills and responsibilities, to ensure that clients are supported. We also talk about potential underwriting questions and how insurers can take steps to improve their communications. 

The key takeaways:

• Statistics over how many neurodiverse people are living within the UK, it’s millions!
• To never make assumptions about your client based upon their health.
• Ways to adapt your sales approach to support people that require different communication routes.

I will be back in a couple of weeks with Katharine Moxham and Roy McLoughlin to chat about group insurance.

This podcast, recorded from the live panel discussion which was broadcast Thursday 15th April, explores how the menopause impacts a woman's work life, and how employers can ensure they are providing the necessary support. The panel also touched on how we can work to break the taboos surrounding menopause, and in doing so, support colleagues and clients better.

The ISC Group is a business community that provides personal, professional and business development for women in insurance. Initially launched as a network for senior women in the UK, it's quickly developed into a global business community uniting women across the world.

Below are links to resources you may find useful, that were mentioned in the podcast:

• British Menopause Society - www.thebms.org.uk

• Daisy Network - www.daisynetwork.org.uk

• Manage My Menopause - www.managemymenopause.co.uk

• Women’s Health Concern - www.womens-health-concern.org

• Menopause Matters - www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum

Matt is sharing his experience of spotting the signs of bowel cancer, pushing for extra medical checks and the time that he learned of his diagnosis. We then talk through the treatments that he underwent and go through some medical terms, to break down some of the most common classifications for assessing cancer.

The key takeaways:

• Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, and the second biggest killer.
• The main symptoms of bowel cancer.
• How staging and grading of cancer works and the TNM system.

I will be back in a couple of weeks with Roy McLoughlin and we will be chatting about group insurance. There is so much potential for introducing group cover to your clients, especially small-to-medium businesses.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Lee has built a platform that allows advisers, from many areas within financial services, to join together to share their knowledge. This private community is focused upon bringing together experts who can discuss best practices, that can generate respectful debate and practical tips for action.

The key takeaways:

• Gift inter vivos and joint life second death policies can be an integral part of effective planning for inheritance tax
• Protection used to be the first building blocks of a financial plan, but it’s not seen to be as interesting as other parts of wealth management
• The need to challenge client’s mindsets of the financial needs for the whole household

On the next podcast I will be back with Matt Rann and we will be chatting about cancer, especially bowel cancer. We will be chatting about early warning signs, potential treatments and what this can mean if you are trying to support someone to get protection insurance.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

In most cases endometriosis will have little impact upon the options available for protection insurance, but there are key questions that you need to ask your clients, to make sure that your research covers everything. It’s also essential to make sure that you approach specific parts of your factfind in a sensitive manner, due to some of the long-term health implications that can be caused by this condition.

The key takeaways:

• 1 in 10 women in the UK have endometriosis.
• Symptoms and potential treatments for endometriosis.
• A case study of arranging life insurance to protect a mortgage, for someone living with endometriosis.

At the end of this episode I also give a few pointers on what to do if you are an employer, so that you can support colleagues that have endometriosis.

On the next podcast Roy McLoughlin is doing his first solo outing as host for the Practical Protection Podcast. Roy will be chatting with Lee Robertson, from Octo Members, about how protection insurance is an essential part of planning a client’s financial future.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Andrew is the Chairman of the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) and brings a very open mind over how mortgages and protection should mix. Amongst other things, we are discussing how the current explanation and marketing of protection products isn’t always the easiest for people to understand outside of this area, and how Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme is akin to income protection and how we can use this as a positive example to explain the product.

The key takeaways:

• Statistics over how many clients believe that their mortgage broker has mentioned protection insurance.
• Some tips on when to bring the protection discussion into your advice process.
• The importance of signposting clients to protection advisers, if you are unable to spare time to do it yourself.

Next time, Matt Rann will be back hosting with me and we will be chatting about the latest underwriting risk, and what you can do to understand it and help your clients more.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Hi everyone, today Matt Rann is joining the episode and we are talking about mental health. With everything that is going on in the world with the coronavirus pandemic, mental health is something that is affecting many people, including both children and adults. 

We are chatting about how mental health is underwritten for things like life insurance, how the insurance sector is currently responding to mental health and our thoughts on how insurance offerings could be improved.

The key takeaways:

• Statistics regarding mental health during the coronavirus lockdown.
• Debate over the classification of mental health symptoms.
• A case study of arranging life insurance and income protection for someone living with Bipolar.

Next time, Roy McLoughlin will be back hosting with me and we will be chatting to Andrew Montlake.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

We are chatting about why covid has meant that underwriting of insurance has had to change this past year, why covid is such a serious risk and hopes that we may start getting back to normal around Easter time.

The key takeaways:

• Why covid is presenting as such a big risk
• What the covid mutations could mean
• Some potential side effects of long covid

Next time, Matt Rann will be doing his first co-host with me, and we will be talking about mental health and underwriting.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Matt Rann will also be a regular co-host and we will be talking about underwriting in the protection space. We will be taking different risk scenarios and chatting about potential underwriting outcomes for protection insurance, and why these decisions are made.

The key takeaways:

• How we are in the perfect time to really drive home the importance of income protection to our clients.
• The need for us to try and get positive stories out into the public domain, and the potential of engaging journalists.
• The value of signposting clients to specialists if you are unable to meet your clients needs, not only for the benefit of your client, but also to make sure that you are truly treating customers fairly and meeting compliance and regulatory requirements.

Next week, I will be speaking with Helen Croft from AIG about coronavirus and the year ahead.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Matt is chatting about how he became an underwriter, and the rewards he has seen by using his knowledge to be an expert witness, when claims have gone wrong.  

The key takeaways:

• Matt's career in underwriting and how things have changed in the last 20 years.
• A summary of the roles of underwriters and actuaries, and how they compliment each other in establishing a client's risk.
• The importance of having support systems in place for claims handlers.

I'm now taking a break until 2021, when I will be back with a slightly different structure. I hope you like it!

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

I hope that you all have a fantastic Christmas and New Year, see you soon!

Alan is doing an income protection masterclass, talking about how versatile these policies are and how they can sometimes have a bad rep, for not being particularly accessible. But, Alan goes through 4 case studies that show how speaking with an adviser, can truly help people with higher risks to get income protection.  

The key takeaways:

• A case study of income protection for someone with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and type 1 diabetes.
• A case study of income protection for a person living with bipolar disorder.
• A case study of income protection for a rock climber.
• A case study of income protection for someone living with Antiphospholipid Syndrome.

Next week, will be the last episode of series 2 and we have some exciting changes coming up for season 3 in 2021. I’m going to be chatting with Matt Rann about his career in underwriting, discussing how underwriting has changed over the last 40 years.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Paul and Di talk about how Winston’s Wish was setup, the way that the charity has adapted over the years and the ways that they are able to support children in the present day. 

The 3 key takeaways:

• 111 children are bereaved of a loved one, everyday in the UK.
• The importance of helping children to process their emotions and reacting to their specific needs, which can be greatly affected by their age.
• A case study of the impact that a parent’s terminal illness, can have on a child.

Next week I will be chatting with Alan Knowles, from Cura Financial Services and Chair of the PDG, about an income protection masterclass.

Remember, if you are listening to this as part of your work, you can claim a CPD certificate on our website.

Alison is the added value services guru within the protection industry, leading much of the developments that have happened in this area. Added value services are the extras that help policyholders and their immediate family, throughout their policy. It's not just about the claim anymore!

Alison is talking about her journey working at Bright Grey and now being a part of AIG, shouting the benefits of these long-term support services.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. The reasons why insurers offer support services to clients.
2. How things like remote 24/7 GP appointments, second medical opinions services, nutrition and fitness advice, have been so essential during the coronavirus pandemic.
3. Stats and clear examples of how these value added services can be life changing for policyholders and their children.

Next week I will be chatting with Paul Moore from Winstons Wish, a childhood bereavement charity. We are going to be talking about their services and how it's so important to make sure that children are properly supported, when they experience a significant loss.

Ross has dyslexia and has developed an accessibility and language toolbar, that helps people to adapt websites to their needs. We have it integrated into our website, the Special Risks Bureau, and it is incredible.

I'm chatting to Ross about why he decided to develop this software and how important it is for businesses to think about these things. We talk about what it is like when you are dyslexic and how when you are faced with insurance documentation, you sometimes avoid getting the insurances so that you don't have to deal with the paperwork.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. How providing accessible websites and services, is a legal requirement for UK businesses.
2. Statistics show that businesses are losing out on 25% of their customers, through a lack of accessibility, estimated to be worth £7billion.
3. ReciteMe only requires a couple of lines of coding, to be integrated into your website, to improve your customer outreach.

Next week I will be chatting with Alison Esson from AIG. We are going to be talking about the different services that are available with the Smart Health support that they offer and their new critical illness offering.

Simoney is on a mission to clear up rogue lead generation firms. From the start we are clear on this, not all lead generation firms are iffy, there are many out there that are completely reputable. As with anything in life you get some good and you get some bad.

I'm chatting to Simoney about the ways that some lead generation firms are behaving, that isn't seen to be the best when it comes to client services. We are talking about ways that client's data is sometimes shared, the way that advertising is being used to confuse customers and how this is affecting the insurance industry as a whole.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. Some of the key tactics that are used by lead generation firms, to target their audience.
2. How client's data can be used and sold once it is with a lead generation firm.
3. The responsibility of adviser firms to know the methods that are being used by lead generation firms, especially if they are unregulated.

Next week I will be chatting with Ross Linnett from Recite Me, a communications software that is helping to improve customer's experiences across the internet, with their cloud based accessibility tool.

My Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his early 50s and he is now 66. He is going to be chatting about how his condition started to affect his ability to work in the police force and what having his symptoms feels like.

He is speaking frankly about how Parkinson's disease has at times changed his behaviour and personality, the symptoms you can have that many people don't think of and how he feels about his upcoming deep brain stimulation surgery.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. Some of the symptoms that a person with Parkinson's disease can experience.
2. The affect that Parkinson's disease can have on changing a person's behaviour.
3. A quick overview of how deep brain surgery is sometimes used to treat Parkinson's disease.

Next week I will be chatting with Simoney Kyriakou about rogue lead distribution firms, what the industry is doing to tackle them and her experiences with private medical insurance.

Hannah is joining me today to chat about pensions, her career and the Women In Financial Advice Awards that is being held today. This is a really interesting one for me as I don't 'do' pensions.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. Pay into your pension, it's the best investment for the future.
2. Pay as much as you can into your pension. Don't opt out and if you can, pay more.
3. Watch out for scammers, they are very very good! Hannah gives tips on how to spot these.

It's a family affair next week, as I'll be chatting with my Dad, Richard Lemmon, about his life and how he is living with Parkinson's Disease. It's an emotional episode for me, as my Dad is due to undergo deep brain surgery very soon and I am of course, a tad nervous about how he is going to be.

Last year Emma was diagnosed with breast cancer and she is joining me on the podcast to talk about her experience of having cancer, her treatment and her tips on reviewing your protection insurances.

Emma is chatting about the extra costs of cancer too, the things that people often don't talk about e.g. post-surgery bras. She also tells us how she now has 3 tattoos thanks to her treatment, something that she never expected and I think that she sounds quite relieved that they are only tiny dots.

With no family history of cancer and a negative result on the BRCA gene, Emma is an example of how cancer can happen to anybody. Working in protection insurance all of her life, she had the foresight to get private medical insurance, critical illness cover and income protection in place, all of which were able to support her during her diagnosis and recovery.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. How you can use lemons to help spot the symptoms of cancer.
2. The importance of reviewing your protection insurance, especially if you are changing jobs and your employee benefits change.
3. A case study about getting life insurance for a client that had breast cancer, whilst stricter underwriting decisions have been in place due to coronavirus.

I might be back sooner than usual with another Inbetweenysode. Watch this space!!

In two weeks I will be chatting with Richard Lemmon, my Dad, about his experiences living with Parkinson's disease.

Vicky is joining me to chat about her health, claiming on her insurance and how the additional services offered by Best Doctors have been phenomenal for both her and her family.

In 2018 Vicky had a major heart attack, which was a huge shock given her being a regular runner, a vegetarian for most of her life and generally someone that didn't have any of the usual risks that lead to a heart attack.

In this episode we focus upon Vicky's experiences of what having a heart attack felt like and how it can change your life. Vicky is now a counsellor to support people that are due to undergo major heart surgery, which I think we can all agree is an incredibly positive way to focus her energy.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. The types of symptoms that someone can experience when having a heart attack.
2. The importance of using value added services, like Best Doctors, to double check that every part of your medical condition has been thoroughly investigated.
3. A case study arranging life insurance for a client with atrial fibrillation, a history of pulmonary embolisms and mental health.

Next time I will be chatting with Emma Thomson from British Friendly. We will be chatting about Emma's experience being diagnosed with breast cancer and what it was like for her to claim on her insurance policies.

In this episode we focus upon providing case studies where Alan has arranged life insurance for people that are considered to be a higher risk.

The 3 key takeaways:

1. Case studies of protection insurance for people that have had leukaemia, prostate cancer, organ transplants, that regularly skydive, and someone travelling and working in Libya.
2. A breakdown of what percentage ratings vs per mile ratings are.
3. The PDG Funeral Pledge and Claims Charter, and what it means for your clients if this insurer has signed up to these.

Alan will be back on in the future with an income protection masterclass and if there’s any specific risks you’d like him to chat about, drop me a message.

Please note that this episode could be quite emotional for some people to hear. We are talking about deaths caused by cancer, heart attack and coronavirus, and the feelings and difficulties that a family member can face when these things happen.

Lindsay will talk through how this year has been and how it can feel when you are faced with so many significant events in such a short period of time. She is talking about how it felt for her mum to place a terminal illness claim, to have that declined and then how it felt when she helped her dad to put forward a death claim this year. Lindsay also discusses how she was able to access Red Arc Nurses through her insurances and what that meant for her and her family.

My 3 key takeaways:

1. The complex emotions that come with making a terminal illness claim.
2. The financial difficulties that a family member can face until a life insurance claim is paid.
3. The practical and emotional support that organisations like Red Arc can offer at the time of a claim and beyond.

Please let me know what you think of the podcast and if there is anything that you would like me to feature in the future.

Next time I will be chatting with Alan Knowles from Cura. We will be talking through a mix of case studies where he has arranged protection insurance for people that are considered a high insurance risk. We will also be discussing his role as the Chair of the PDG and his membership of the Access to Insurance working group.

It's episode 4 of season 2 and today is all about RedArc Nurses. I have Sue Kinsella with me, who is talking about her experiences working at RedArc and what it is that these nurses do.

My 3 key takeaways,

1. Things to do and things not to do when someone talks to you about their health.

2. What to do if you are speaking with someone and you become concerned about the safety of their mental health.

3. The different services that RedArc can offer include second medical opinion services, explanations of medical diagnosis and treatments, materials to support children to understand what is happening, a regular supportive catch-up chat and much more.

Please let me know what you think of the podcast and if there is anything that you would like me to feature in the future.

Next time I have Lindsay Mason from Cura joining me. Lindsay has had a significantly difficult year, losing her mum to cancer, supporting her father whilst making a claim on her life insurance and having the support of a RedArc Nurse. She has an incredible story to share and I think you will find it very powerful to listen to.

We are onto episode 3 of season 2 and this time I have Leo Miles with me.

Leo works for Macmillan Cancer Support and spends her time fighting for equality for people that have had or are living with cancer. Leo has been a mortgage adviser, has worked within the Financial Services Authority and is now a charity advocate.

My 3 key takeaways,

1. Access to insurance for people with a history of cancer has changed due to coronavirus.

2. It is essential that everyone within the insurance sector adheres to the Equality Act, when considering how they offer products and services to people that have had cancer.

3. Two case studies showing potential terms for life insurance and income protection, for people that have had cancer.

Please let us know if you have any thoughts on what we have been discussing.

Next time I have Sue Kinsella from RedArc Nurses joining me. We are going to be talking through a typical day in the life of a RedArc nurse and how they help families through some of the most challenging experiences in their lives.

We are onto episode 2 of season 2 and this time I have Roger Edwards with me.

Roger is an independent marketing consultant and has worked within the insurance world for many years. He is bringing his experience to help us understand how to avoid enraging customers.

My 3 key takeaways,

1. Trust in insurance is the basis for people engaging and not engaging with our sector.

2. Roger's 3 key communication tips: assume your client knows nothing about your product/service, speak in their language and avoid jargon!

3. Roger's experience of difficulties placing a life insurance claim.

Please let us know if you have any thoughts on what we have been discussing. Roger has an award winning podcast of his own the Marketing and Finance Podcast, that you can find on all major podcast platforms.

Roger is also an avid vlogger and has a popular youtube channel that you can watch. You'll find a lot of his travel videos there amongst other bits, one was even spotted and landed him a feature in a National Geographic documentary!

Next time I have Leo Miles from Macmillan Cancer Support joining me. We are going to be talking about cancer and insurance.

This is my first solo hosting episode, please be gentle with me!

Catherine Morgan is joining me to start off this season. We are talking about people's mindsets, embedded beliefs that dictate how we feel about finances and whether we do or don't trust insurance. I came away with some personal revelations about how my money mindset has been shaped since childhood.

We also chat about Catherine's experience applying for insurance having had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a recent claim on private medical insurance.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. 90% of our decisions are based upon emotions.

2. The typical types of questions that will be asked about post traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders, when you apply for protection insurance.

3. Two case study clients that have experienced PTSD and the insurances that were available to them, including a specific life insurance that has a permanent self-harm and suicide exclusion.

Catherine owns The Money Panel and has her own podcast In Her Financial Shoes. This year she has also launched a financial coaching programme and I recommend that you take a look at it.

I hope that you enjoy this episode (quickly hides in case solo hosting isn't my strongest skill!). Next time I have Roger Edwards joining me and we are going to be talking about what we like in marketing and insurance, and some no nos.

In this episode we are chatting about HIV with our guest Rosalie Hayes from the National Aids Trust. Rosalie is chatting about the insurance from the viewpoint of people that are living with HIV, the barriers that have been faced, where insurance seems to be getting better and how there needs to be a clear focus on fair and reasonable terms of cover.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. There are around 100,000 people living with HIV in the UK.

2. The need to ensure that all insurance decisions adhere to the Equalities Act.

3. Two case study clients who are living with HIV and were able to access life insurance and income protection.

We always love to hear from you, please do let us know your thoughts of the podcast and if you like what we are doing. In the next episode, Kathryn will have her first solo outing with another guest for the start of Season 2.

In this episode we are chatting about diabetes. We try and keep the inevitable chat over coronavirus to a minimum in these episodes, but it's well and truly everywhere throughout this one. There have been some significant links between coronavirus deaths and diabetes and this has understandably changed the way that insurers are offering cover.

We chat through potential insurance terms for diabetics pre-covid, during lockdown and what we hope will happen post coronavirus.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. 1 in every 15 people in the UK has diabetes.

2. The importance of self-knowledge and engagement with medical advice, in determining the potential terms of insurance.

3. Case study client that was able to have life insurance and income protection, with a number of medical conditions including type 1 diabetes.

We always love to hear from you, please do let us know your thoughts of the podcast and if you like what we are doing. In the next episode we will have another guest on with us and we will be chatting about insurance and people living with HIV.

This is our first podcast episode that really tries to lay bare, what can happen if you apply for insurance when you have a mental health condition.

The main bits:

1. What insurers want to know about your mental health
2. Why they even ask
3. What happens when you apply for cover
4. What are the risks
5. What you can expect

We have deliberately done this episode shorter than usual, so that we focus upon the key things that you need to know and don't waffle on about a load of unnecessary bits (we're both wafflers!).

Today we are thrilled to have Kara Gammell joining us on the podcast.

Kara is an award winning financial journalist with a passion for talking about money, shown in her money saving blog 'Your Best Friends Guide to Cash' and book that you can buy here.

Kara is a big advocate of income protection. In this episode she talks about her childhood living in a household where both parents were medically retired and claiming on income protection.

Hearing Kara talk about how income protection supported her parents, really brings home what we are trying to achieve within the insurance world.

Our 3 key takeaways:

1. The non-monetary benefits of income protection.
2. The value of income protection to the policyholder's family.
3. Two case studies from the Seven Families campaign.

As with all of our episodes, we love your feedback! Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future episodes pop up a message.

Come back to listen to us in a couple of weeks time when we are going to be talking about diabetes.

Today we are so pleased to have Steve Casey joining us on the podcast.

Steve has worked within financial services for many years, but that is not the focus of this episode. In 2018 Steve had a stroke, completely out of the blue, in his words it came with a bang.

This episode is focused upon hearing Steve's story, how it felt to have a stroke, what happened and how his recovery has been. We then venture a little bit into his experience of making a claim on his critical illness insurances afterwards and what he is up to now.

He is an incredible guy and we hope that you enjoy listening to him.

Our 3 key takeaways:

1. The FAST stroke test.
2. You do not always experience facial weakness and loss of arm strength, when having a stroke.
3. Two case study clients that had experienced strokes, that were able to access protection insurance.

As with all of our episodes, we love your feedback! Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future episodes pop up a message.

Next time we have another mystery guest, focusing upon the importance of income protection.

Things have been incredibly interesting in the insurance world recently (yes, we know, you can count on us to be the life and souls of a party!).

In this episode we are focusing upon multiple sclerosis and how the new world of insurance, is treating applications from people living with the condition. As always Kathryn poses a few challenges to Andrew on why insurers work the way that they do.

From an advisers mind "outside" of an insurer, there are some things that seem like they should be pretty easy changes. Andrew brings his technical knowledge to the chat, to explain why insurers work in the ways that they do, the reasons why some barriers to insurance still remain in place, and also his view on areas where insurers could adapt more.

Our 3 key takeaways:

1. There are 130,000 people living with MS in the UK.
2. Some tips for advisers on how to support clients with MS applying for insurance, during the coronavirus pandemic.
3. Two case study clients living with multiple sclerosis, that were able to access protection insurance.

We hope that you find this episode informative and thought-provoking. We are trying to keep these episodes balanced to show the positives of the insurance world, whilst also not pretending that everything is perfect.

As with all of our episodes, we love your feedback! Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future episodes pop up a message.

Next time we are focusing on Strokes with a mystery guest.

We are absolutely thrilled this week to be joined by our first guest, Mike Adams OBE. Mike is an incredible speaker and advocate for improving access to products and services, for people with disabilities.

Mike's organisation Purple have gained significant attention in recent years with Purple Tuesday, a day where all organisations are asked to truly think about how they can improve access to their offerings.

This mindset to improve accessibility, shouldn't just be one day a year, it should be embedded in a company's ethos. In this episode we talk with Mike about how the insurance industry has made big improvements to improving access to insurance and we also chat about where things could still be better.

Our 3 key takeaways:

1. The consumer spending power of the disabled community, the Purple Pound, stands at £249 billion per year!
2. For years people with disabilities have asked for and many have been denied support to work from home. The coronavirus lockdown has shown that this is possible for many organisation to adapt to employees working from home.
3. There are roughly 300,000 people per year that need additional medical underwriting for protection insurance. Insurers need to develop ways to adapt their medical underwriting processes, due to the limitations on medical resources that coronavirus is causing.

We hope that you enjoy this episode. Mike has a wealth of experience and knowledge on how to break down barriers, so that people living with disabilities are treated fairly by organisations. We hope that his message of a continued need for equality in these troubling times, is heard by all.

As with all of our episodes, we love your feedback! Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future episodes pop up a message.

Next time we are focusing on Multiple Sclerosis

Hi Everyone,

We had a really insightful time at last week's Cover Mental Health conference. It was great to hear from our peers and new friends, about how we are all taking every step that we can to support people living with mental health conditions.

Kathryn is not one to shy away from saying that she has had generalised anxiety disorder for many years, and experienced agoraphobia a couple of times. She is incredibly passionate about people living with mental health conditions, getting fair access to insurance.

Andrew has been working alongside insurers to determine the best ways to develop current medical underwriting stances, especially the language used, when it comes to mental health. He is currently developing a mental health training programme for advisers, so that they can support their clients fully.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. 26.8% of 16-24 year olds have had suicidal thoughts.

2. Example Vulnerable Customer policy.

3. Case study client that was able to have life insurance after a suicide attempt, without a permanent suicide or self-harm exclusion.

We always love to hear from you, please do let us know your thoughts of the podcast and if you think that our ramblings are good, bad or simply not your cup of tea.

This is our third episode and it's all about vaping. The most interesting thing is that Kathryn and Andrew have kind of switched roles in this one. Kathryn is more cautious about the underwriting of ecig users, than Andrew is!

Are you guessing who is telling the truth or lying, right?

In this episode we are focusing on e-cigarettes and what you need to know, if you use these and want insurance.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. 5-6% of adults in the UK vape.

2. Some insurers may class very occasional smokers, as non-smokers.

3. Potential ratings for an ex-smoker that has previously had a heart attack.

As with all of our episodes, do you agree with us? Disagree with us? Send us a message and let us know your thoughts. We would also love for you to send us any questions that you want us to discuss on upcoming episodes.

We are absolutely blown away by the downloads and feedback that the podcast is getting. Thank you to everyone that has left us a review and personally reached out to us to give us your thoughts.

In this episode we are focusing on rare diseases (or conditions as Kathryn prefers, she doesn't like being thought of as diseased!) and what you need to know, if you have this condition and want insurance.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. 1 in every 20 people in the UK has a rare disease

2. Insurers trust that GP reports are accurate, but there are times that they are wrong

3. A case study of sickle cell anaemia

Andrew has expertly stayed away from technical jargon, but please forgive Kathryn for going off on a smidgen of medical info, this is a subject she is very passionate about!

There is another teaser at the end in our 'Truth or Lie' feature and you need to decide again if it is Kathryn or Andrew that is a liar. But! Like last time you have to tune in to episode 3 to hear the answer.

This is our first official, proper, hopefully fantabulous, brand spanking new episode. Can you tell we are a bit excited?

In this episode we are focusing on epilepsy and what you need to know, if you have this condition and want insurance.

Our 3 key takeaways,

1. There are approximately 60 different types of epileptic seizures

2. Epilepsy is not often a huge red flag for insurers

3. Two case study clients living with epilepsy, you might think are uninsurable

Don't worry, we know insurance is boring and Kathryn and Andrew have done well to avoid the jargon!

There is also a teaser at the end where you get to decide in this episodes 'Truth or Lie' if it is Kathryn or Andrew that is a liar. But! You have to tune in for episode 2 to hear the answer, see what we've done there, enticing you back, we're so smooth.

This is our podcast teaser, 'pilot', episode. We are so excited to be sharing this with you and giving you a taster of what our podcast is going to be about.

You will quickly discover that Kathryn and Andrew are talking about serious topics, but not in a harrowing way. You will hear random bursts of giggles, random cut aways to side thoughts, but mainly a desire to help the protection industry evolve.

We hope you like this taster and we shall see you for our official launch, at the beginning of February.

Bye for now