The Association of Mortgage Intermediaries (AMI) has released an ideas document on the back of its five-point plan, which was launched last year.

The ideas, which have been published by the AMI, have been collated from an in-person workshop held earlier this year.

The plan was a call to action which aimed to transform the protection sector and propel the industry forward, in response to trends identified from three years’ worth of consumer and adviser research.

AMI worked with its internal industry working group, Legal & General (L&G), Royal London and the wider industry to develop ideas on how to collectively tackle the barriers highlighted in the Viewpoint reports.

As part of this, AMI ran an in-person protection workshop in April 2023, involving individuals from a selection of mortgage advice firms, which included L&G, Royal London, the Protection Distributors Group (PDG) and the Income Protection Task Force (IPTF).

Senior adviser at AMI, Stacey Penn, said: “The five-point plan was a key part of last year’s protection Viewpoint and, nearly eight months on, we wanted to provide a progress update to the wider industry. The ideas document released today is one area of this work and is designed to spark new ways of thinking and generate discussion within firms.

“AMI has a list of action points from the workshop and looks forward to working with other industry stakeholders to help shift the dial in the protection space.”

Director of intermediary at L&G Retail, Julie Godley, added: “Following the release of the five-point plan, we have continued to listen to our intermediary partners and coupled this with a willingness to take action to ensure we provide the best service, processes and solutions. Specifically, our customer experience and optimisation teams have researched specific pain points and this is driving change.

“As a result, we have updated the functionality of our systems, made cancellation on behalf of a customer easier and streamlined reinstatement processes. We also appreciate that this is a continuous conversation and have a dedicated mailbox for advisers to send us their ideas and feedback.

“When it comes to supporting adviser confidence, we launched Partner First Service which provides dedicated teams for advisers to speak to about their new and existing business. We also have an extensive pre-sale underwriting proposition offering support for application enquiries to help provide advisers confidence around cases with, potentially complex medical disclosures.”

Protection specialist at Royal London, Jennifer Gilchrist, also said: “AMI’s Viewpoint report, The Great Protection Shift, is a great way of challenging the industry to continually seek ways to improve processes, adapt and showcase the industry in the best way possible.

“The implementation of Consumer Duty will help to shift the dial by including protection as part of the holistic advice conversation – ultimately enhancing its profile. As part of that we’ll also see greater emphasis on often overlooked elements like writing policies in trust and the completion of beneficiary nomination forms, all of which will help increase confidence in the industry.

“Since the publication of AMI’s five-point plan, we’ve continued to listen to advisers and provide support in areas that they said they would appreciate it most. One of those areas is understanding the power of claims statistics and case studies that bring to life what we strive to do on a day-to-day basis – supporting clients when they need it most. There is no better way of demonstrating the power of protection.”

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