A new guide has been launched to help support financial advisers when talking about suicide-related issues with their clients.

The guide has been developed by Action for Suicide Prevention in Insurance (ASPiiN), a voluntary group of individuals from across the protection insurance industry who have a professional or personal experience of the impact of suicide.

The group stated that its aim is to help financial advisers, along with the wider financial services community, to increase their understanding of the issues relating to suicide.

ASPiiN has published the guide in partnership with the Protection Distributors Group (PDG) and Sesame Bankhall Group (SBG), with expert guidance and support from the Samaritans.

“Working with the Samaritans, we’ve produced guidance that we hope will help financial advisers create content for websites and digital communications that talk about suicide and raise awareness,” said ASPiiN chair, Fraser Ballantine. “There’s also a suicide prevention training directory filled with organisations and resources that can help.

“Our aim is to help develop a valuable resource for the whole industry. By working together, we can hopefully help prevent suicide from affecting more customers and friends.”

SBG CEO, Michele Golunska, added: “Financial advisers might find themselves in a situation where they have real concerns over a customer’s health and welfare. Financial advisers are professionals in what they do, but they are not trained counsellors.

“We need to help equip them with the right information, so they can signpost customers to the right sources of expert assistance.”

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