Service levels and transfer of workloads

If you're an adviser, you will have seen the challenges with provider service levels trending downwards and your admin loads increasing.

What I find concerning is a prevailing attitude emanating from insurance company management. I'm paraphrasing here "Service levels are shite, but that's with everyone, so we won't do anything about it."

Justifying poor service levels on the basis that everyone else is as bad or worse is not an organisational aspiration. I said the same thing about the government's report on mental health services when they came back with a similar answer.

Not only does it make life difficult for everyone, but it also ensures that your own teams are destined for burnout and job dissatisfaction. While management sits around and wonders why people leave and service gets worse.

I'm not having a poke at any particular provider as the data suggests everyone is equally painful without playing favourites or taking a focused approach in a particular way.

We have one that's consistently been rubbish for everyone, but the rest continue to receive mixed reviews. Providers that I feel are doing quite well are being slated by other advisers, with some of the worst service being highlighted. While I'm finding some providers to be painful, advisers are having a good experience with those.

This leads me to assume that a targeted delivery of service is in effect, and your mileage may vary.

What concerns me about all of this is that the service delivery to clients is patchy and differs based on who the client talks to, which shouldn't be happening.

The cynical could say that providers are playing favourites and undermining particular businesses. I don't think this is going on as the rule of stupidity explaining the problem rather than malice is the likely answer.

Which brings me to my point about the transfer of workload. We have seen, for years, the transfer of workload from providers to advisers creeping in. It should be the adviser, and their team runs the final QA on what's going on before it goes to the client.

However, the processes around this seem to be somewhat perverted and creating unnecessary issues.

Issues that seem to be coming from two key drivers:

1. Lack of experienced staff, potentially also a result of the work-from-home approach, where team members lack access to coworkers to ask questions and are forced to do their best and push it out the door.
2. Technology speeding up the business cycle. Whereas in the past, the paper-based approach gave us time both internally within the insurer and then delays in the post to their address to manage issues as they arose. Digital delivery means it's already with the clients, and managing the errors becomes one of being on the back foot with the client from the get-go.

All of this effectively means the average adviser business is being hammered with overwhelming levels of admin that the insurer should handle.

Advisers have two choices here:

1. Let it run and react to the responses
2. Actively manage it and avoid the future pitfalls.

For the first one, it is the less burdensome right now. However, you will face a greater challenge later with noise from the client, as well as potential claims and premium outcomes that are not client-appropriate.

The second one has the impact of significant additional workload, where not only is the adviser business doing the QA work they should be doing, they are doing the active management of getting the job done right, often with 2-3 reworks of the task before they get it completed.

In the meantime, the client has been impacted, and the adviser business is now having to manage the fallout with the client as well as manage the provider to sort things out. At the same time, adviser access to competent, available people inside the insurer is being made harder.

One provider I work with, the key relationship person, is largely just a sounding board; they have no ability to influence anything. There is no avenue for issues or feedback for change; right now, it might as well be an automated bot for all the effectiveness it has.

I discussed the challenges that the commoditisation of insurance brings; the admin challenges around this only add to the justification of specialist advisers in our space.

A case that crossed my desk recently has had a light touch from the past group advisers they have had, with continuation of employer coverage without advice.

The result is pretty much what you'd expect.

• Duplication of cover
• Two potential trauma claims that haven't been considered
• Income protection claims that are related
• Medical insurance that hasn't been used.

While I appreciate that there is a responsibility for the client to stick their hand up and ask. The policies implemented here by date encompass all of these events, and not a single question regarding existing coverage or medical history has been asked.

Now, you can comment that group advisers don't provide detailed personal advice and state this in their scope of service. Or even that the continuation options provided are transactional and not advice.

However, at the same time, there is a responsibility to ask for some basic details and provide clear warnings if advice is not being provided that the client should seek appropriate financial advice.

Not to mention the issue of ongoing reviews once implemented!

This client has four different advisers for their policies, and some of them are well-known names. If this is how you operate in the group space, you're now on notice. It's only a matter of time before there's a serious complaint.

And that doesn't include the current continuation option on offer, where it's been presented as a no-advice, transactional, take-it-or-leave-it cover. However, in this case, there is a clear "seek advice" message that has come with the options.

To tie this up in a bow, specialist advice is very much needed in our space. Providers are not helping with the issues and challenges, and both  push admin onto us while not paying us for the work we do when the incumbent is not providing the expected service.

Some will say we should charge fees. Yes, that is an option. At the same time, the client needs help, and they have already paid the insurer with their premiums for the help they are expecting from us.