Pink and Aviva have jointly launched a Protection Academy.

The two firms claims the academy will take both mortgage advisers who are not used to selling protection and people new to the industry, and provide them with in-depth training on how to sell protection products.

The 12-month training programme including face–to-face workshops, online training and meetings offering additional support.

Mark Graves, head of sales at Pink, said: “Protection sales are key to the future survival of advisers; however protection sales require very different sales skills to selling a mortgage. Selling a mortgage is very transactional, people come to you with a need; whereas it is very rare that someone will come to an adviser looking to buy protection, usually it needs to be sold, and advisers need to be expert in ‘soft’ sales skills in order to be truly successful at this.

“It is rare that advisers are trained in these skills nowadays so Pink and Aviva’s Protection Academy is looking to plug that gap.”

Louise Colley, head of protection sales and marketing at Aviva, added: “At Aviva we are wholly committed to helping consumers understand the financial and emotional risks they are undertaking without financial protection in place.

“Working together we will utilise the extensive Aviva collateral, designed to motivate and engage advisers about the importance of financial protection. By advisers asking their clients ‘what makes family life special?’ it will allow them to have deeper and more meaningful conversations. This will enable clients to recognise the need to safeguard what most important to them now and in the future.

“We are really excited about this initiative which will no doubt result in more consumers being financially protected.”