Nobody really owns the client ....

I don’t regard any brand or service provider owning me. Yet this argument runs constantly in financial services.

Every week in our pink papers, we observe a negative game of ping pong between advisers and insurers. The adviser shouts that an insurer has contacted their client direct and are trying to steal the client. The insurer eventually counters with a statement to say that what they are doing is critical to ensure the fairness in the service of their contractual party. Thus, the mutual paranoia continues.

What is becoming clear though is that advisers probably cannot afford to handle everything once a policy is in force. What we need is a much more mature and transparent process so that the adviser can see everything that the insurer is doing with the client that they have introduced. The challenge for advisers is to properly appraise the processes of insurers, make that a factor in the choice of insurers, allow that routine work to happen insisting that the insurer keeps them informed by copying them in on correspondence. Electronically is better because paper is just too expensive for all parties.

Choose your insurer after appraisal of their process, get out of the way on processes where there is little or no earning potential and figure out a systematic method of sample checking. Perhaps demand service level standards that are published and benchmarked.

So advisers, consider delegating more to your insurers and holding them to account through reviews. Now that would be an interestingly subtle shifting of power in the relationship..........