Happy New Year to everyone. I hope it was a restful break that included family time, and that you are back fully charged, ready to help as many clients as possible in 2025.

Firstly, thank you for getting past the article title and giving me a chance to talk about GI.

My opening sentence mentioned helping as many clients as possible. As you look at your business plans for 2025, do you break it down by client numbers, by product types (i.e. mortgages, protection etc) or do you have a monetary value you want to achieve?

Personally, I find that breaking down a yearly monetary objective into component parts does help focus my plans. If you do this, I wonder what value you would put against GI, if anything.

What I will aim not to do is fill your ‘GI Bingo Card’ with the tired old cliches that you have probably seen in many presentations over the years. Yes, we have all heard the “sell four policies a month for four years and you will have a residual income of £x per year before you do anything.” That didn’t work or motivate the market, so let’s move on.

Let’s start by being clear – advising on a GI policy is not the sexiest product to be talking about and one that none of us would choose to take if we had a choice. It is though a real necessity and a requirement of your mortgage in relation to buildings cover. The damage by not taking it is only too clear when you see the scenes from over the Christmas break of the flooding we have experienced. No insurance – or under insurance – can cause untold harm and leave a client exposed to costs that could put their mortgage payments at risk.

CONSUMER DUTY

Another bingo card moment has been Consumer Duty. It has been used in a plethora of ways in many situations since launch to push you to do things in the same way as treating customers fairly was previously to avoid any complaints about perceived poor service. Again, it is not the reason to advise on GI but yes, we should consider a consumer outcome if they are not adequately insured in relation to your wider relationship with them.

Last year we spoke to firms to understand why they didn’t advise more on GI and, to those that did, what it meant to them. The overwhelming feedback was the need to have confidence in the product and the process to advise on it.

We then worked with all our GI partners to look at what a new proposition should look like that would help advisers gain that confidence. What they have delivered has been transformational. Since we re-launched the proposition in autumn, we have seen a 10% uplift in new policies. What they delivered was a resource hub that provided extensive training modules, assistance in a variety of specialist business areas, one to one consultancy, an expanded product set, and motivational coaching sessions on business growth.

We also saw more advisers making the decision to refer rather than ignore. There is nothing wrong with this and I can see the benefits from both a time and knowledge perspective. The key is that the client is getting expert advice and not being left to make their own decisions based purely on price.

DESIRE

It does seem that the desire is there from the market to do more in the GI space, it is up to providers and distributors like us to step up to the plate and deliver what is needed and not just keep rehashing tired old cliches.

Finally, did I complete your GI Bingo Card or not?

Maybe we should create a new Bingo Card for 2025 that embraces all the positive reason why GI is an important product when servicing your client needs.

Martin Reynolds is CEO of Simplybiz Mortgages