How Can An Insurance Adviser help you?

16 January 2015

Finding the right Personal Risk Insurance can be a time consuming and confusing exercise for those who don’t do it all the time. This week we thought that we would provide some examples where the use of an Insurance adviser can provide huge value at no additional cost to you.

Deciphering what’s in your current policy- An Insurance adviser can help determine what type of policy and cover a client already holds. Many people are unaware of the finer detail of their policies and the adviser will be able to show what money gets paid out and if there are any conditions such as an Income replacement cover that stops paying out after a certain period of time. They will also advise what events may trigger a claim payment and if there are any conditions or situations that won’t be covered by the clients existing provider. There are also some types of insurance, no longer available, and often the advice of a good adviser will be to let someone know that what they have in place may in fact be the best type product at the right price.

An advocate during the underwriting process- The laborious process of answering Insurers questions can be made considerably easier by using an adviser. Instead of wading through pages of forms on their own, the adviser can help their client make sure that they complete the application correctly and can advise of any likely premium increases or exclusions, so that they don’t come as a shock at claim time or prior to the new policy being issued.

Somebody to help you through at Claim Time- Most insurance policies on face value, appear to be very similar, but experience has shown us that the claims process can differ quite significantly between different providers. It is at claim time that an adviser can help with the process to make sure that the right money goes to the right place at the right time. Claim time is not the time that you want to have a stressful experience, so it is important that you can have confidence that your adviser will take care of following up with the insurers on your behalf, and will make sure that any required documentation can be completed or requested from the relevant organisation to make sure payment is available at the earliest opportunity.

Ongoing reviews for your Insurance Cover- Obtaining the insurance cover is the first part of the relationship that an adviser will have with their clients. However, as well as providing an initial recommendation, an adviser will help their clients by arranging annual reviews to make sure that the type and level of cover in place is still relevant to their personal situation. This review can take the form of a phone call to make sure that the client is happy with everything as it stands, or a more in depth analysis of any changes to income or debt level which may require an amendment to the policy to either provide a greater degree of protection or to amend the policy to keep within a budgeted figure. There can also be amendments to insurances in place as a result of changes to the client’s personal lifestyle, such as somebody giving up smoking or losing a large amount of weight which can affect premium pricing. There have also been situations where an exclusion that has been put in place after receipt of medical information at the time of initial underwriting has been removed after a period of clear health, and on one memorable occasion, a review showed that a new client had been paying increased premiums for a product to cover staff members when they had stopped employing people several years earlier.

Most importantly, an Insurance adviser will help by offering a free service to provide peace of mind to their clients while guaranteeing that they have the right Insurance cover at the right price.

 

Published In Whakatane Beacon

This post was written by

John White - who has written 3 posts

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