The FCA seems very interested in protection these days and warned insurers it will take action if the slow payment of claims continues. Many are taking too long, the regulator says framing it, I think fairly, as treating the bereaved unfairly. Health & Protection reports and the intro is a neat summation.
Life insurers have been told to settle death claims quicker and improve how they monitor claims times or face further action by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Can’t see many advisers disagreeing with this assessment.
This is part of a series of reviews, letters and market studies as the regulator gets round to applying Consumer Duty properly to protection.
We’re going to stick to protection.
Dr Matthew Connell director of policy and public affairs at the PFS, writing in Money Marketing, argues that "the issue of loaded premiums for protection advisers can be addressed by creating and enforcing a professional approach to conflicts of interest. Here, professionals can take responsibility for ensuring clients make a conscious decision to pay more in return for identifiable benefits".
It sounds good in practice, but I am not sure it will impress the regulator.
Of course, the regulator itself is not above criticism.
An upcoming report from an All-Party Parliamentary Group calls into question the integrity of the FCA, which it says is "widely seen as incompetent".
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud and Fairer Financial Services is due to publish a hard-hitting report on the FCA on Tuesday, with the story covered in Financial Reporter.
One to watch.
This may be of some interest to those advising farmers. Tax expert Dan Neidle suggests that the IHT reform is hitting genuine farmers but missing a lot of people using farmland for tax planning. This is a link to the analysis which also suggests an alternative approach which would not levy IHT on most farms if they stayed in the family and continued to be farmed.
The piece of CPD content from Dunstan Thomas in Financial Adviser is a very neat summation of what is happening in the retirement market. This is one of several interesting stats.
“Our own boomer study also found that 38 per cent of boomers planned to retire later than state pension age of 66 years. The average length of time that this large group of ‘retirement resisters’ plan to work on for is 4.3 years. So, this very large group will, on average, be over 70 when they retire.”
Financial advisers are concerned that the impact of regulation will limit the time they can use to deliver financial advice, a survey of advisers from BNY Investments and NextWealth has found, as Professional Adviser reports. There does seem to be something of a tension in regulatory ambitions to close the advice gap and other regulatory demands.
Asset manager Tavistock has struck a deal for Alpha Beta Partners, a DFM with £3bn under management as Citywire reports.
