MIp19-20_0210:MI 12 Jan 21/01/2010 15:24 Page 21
Diversification | 19
Lessons to
learn
Mark Graves, MD, Linear Financial Solutions,
believes brokers need to go back to basics and
offer ‘real’ advice
W
e just cannot seem to keep selling life protection with a mortgage (no offer other products under duress. I think it is
networks out of the news at further forward than a couple of years ago). easy to forget that a large section of brokers
present. If you read any trade How many mortgage brokers re-visit the client never actually used to see clients face to face,
press letters page you cannot feel after their mortgage completes to map out a instead everything was transacted over the
anything but sympathy for the plan of their financial requirements and then phone. Sitting in someone’s front room talking
broker who does all the work in keeping the regularly re-visits their client to keep them on about the client’s future aspirations job wise,
network’s directors in a decent lifestyle, but are track? their family security and the children's future is
at the end of the queue when it comes to If only advisers grasped that TCF is the most a different ball game. This requires better
receiving the money. There are plenty of lessons profitable way forward in today’s sales communication skills and confidence regards
we can learn from this, yet I find it hard to environment. Hardly any advisers I see their all-round knowledge.
identify many being put into practice. currently sell separate family protection cover; I have yet to find a mortgage broker who has
I keep reading about this new world called instead decreasing term life cover that clients a sales process where critical illness (CI)
diversification and that everyone still working will cancel when they move home is still the insurance is sold independently of the
as brokers must have seen the light. Well from order of the day. mortgage. For some bizarre reason clients can
my point of view that clearly is not the case - in The reason mortgage brokers are still selling only have CI as long as the mortgage goes
fact I reckon only one in ten of the advisers I like this is pretty clear – it is because it is the through. If however the mortgage falls through
interview, actually know what the role of same sales approach as a mortgage ‘cheapest for any reason, the broker automatically
offering real advice means - hardly any know quote’ sale. Again I ask the question, where is abandons the CI insurance. One assumes the
what the inheritance tax limits are, and most the training coming from to re-invent the sales broker in this scenario, has told the client they
look at me with a blank stare as to why they approach to make it more customer focused in are only at risk of becoming ill if they move
should be putting the single life policies in trust. the current climate? house or buy their first property. I would love
So whose fault is this, theirs or the company Benefit selling is not the normal broker that sort of guarantee: stay in your existing
covering their back for a slice of the approach when combining life sales with a house and no CI is needed because you will be
commission? mortgage, but this is why re-visiting the client fine!
to deal specifically with their other financial However it does reveal some of the
TCF needs should be standard practice after opportunities that are still available: separate
Diversification is a sound bite often used by completion. CI sales and life assurance sales regardless of
networks but what does it really mean? To me it whether a mortgage is taken out; life assurance
is completing a full financial review with a Diversification that covers the whole family rather than just
client; however, to many, it is no more than Most mortgage brokers, if they are honest, the life of the mortgage payer, and which
www.mortgageintroducer.com February 2010 Mortgage Introducer
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