The Intermediary – March 2026 - Flipbook - Page 76
P RO T E C T I O N
Opinion
A new age for
protection planning
P
rotection advice
sits at the heart of
financial planning.
When delivered well,
it safeguards families
against life’s most
difficult moments, ensuring financial
resilience when it maers most.
And yet, protection conversations
are oen harder to deliver than they
should be. Not because advisers and
brokers lack expertise. Not because the
products are unavailable. But because
the process surrounding protection
planning can be deeply complex, timeconsuming and knowledge-intensive.
To understand provider differences,
policy definitions, underwriting
approaches, exclusions and product
structures, all on the basis of client
health profile, requires navigating
large volumes of ever-changing
documentation and libraries.
For many advisers and brokers,
this means spending valuable time
locating, comparing and validating
information before meaningful client
discussions even begin.
In a profession already operating
under tight time pressures, regulatory
scrutiny and being heavily detailorientated, that research burden
can quietly slow the entire process,
and more oen than not, lead to the
overall abandonment of protection.
The silent barrier
The protection gap has been discussed
for years, and is only widening. The
recent Financial Conduct Authority
(FCA) ‘Pure Protection’ interim
market report showed that millions
of households remain financially
vulnerable, oen without sufficient
cover – or any cover at all – to protect
them and their loved ones.
The solutions exist, yet the path
to delivering them simply became
inefficient. Much of the challenge
lies not in willingness, but in the
mechanics of the process. Protection
planning requires in-depth analysis;
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The Intermediary | March 2026
for advisers and brokers aempting to
deliver timely, accurate and detailed
advice, gathering relevant insights
can become a significant task in
itself, especially when the client
is already disengaged owing to the
taboo of protection being expensive,
that it never pays out, or that they
don’t understand why they need it –
ultimately leading to advice becoming
price-led, not quality-driven.
In simple terms, the industry is
not short of data and knowledge
— it is short of efficient access and
assistance with it.
AI enters the conversation
Across financial services, artificial
intelligence (AI) is changing how we
all interact with complex, intricate
and ever-changing information.
Rather than replacing expertise,
modern AI systems are increasingly
being used to organise and surface
relevant insights from large datasets.
Tasks that once required hours
of manual research can now be
explored, analysed and compared in
mere seconds.
For advisers and brokers, this
represents a shi in how protection
research could be approached.
Instead of spending valuable time
searching through documents and
databases, AI can structure and
highlight relevant insights instantly.
This allows advisers and brokers to
move more quickly from information
gathering to client understanding, all
in real time. That distinction maers.
Because the real value advisers
and brokers bring to clients lies in
judgement, experience and the ability
to guide people through complex and
sensitive financial decisions.
Technology should therefore
support that expertise through an
assistive approach, not compete with
it. AI will not replace advisers or
brokers. But it may finally remove
the friction that has long slowed
delivering protection advice.
AMMER MOHAMMED
is founder at Protectix
If AI can remove some of the
research burden surrounding
protection advice, something
important happens:
Time to explore different provider
propositions.
Confidence to analyse products and
policies more thoroughly.
Clarity to have deeper conversations
with clients about their
protection needs.
In a profession where time is oen the
most constrained resource, even small
improvements in efficiency can have
a meaningful impact, leading to more
confident analysis.
More confident analysis can lead to
stronger protection discussions. And
stronger discussions ultimately lead to
beer client outcomes.
A turning point
The protection market may be
approaching a significant inflection
point. What has oen been missing
is technology that truly supports the
research and comparison process that
sits behind the advice being delivered.
AI has the potential to bridge that gap.
If AI can reduce friction in the
protection journey, restore time, and
enhance confidence for advisers and
brokers, the impact could extend far
beyond efficiency.
It could help bring protection back
where it belongs – the forefront of
financial planning – meaning more
households receiving the valuable
protection advice they truly need. A
major win for the industry at a time
where it maers now more than ever.
At Protectix, this is precisely the
challenge and vision we have been
focused on solving as we prepare to
launch our innovative and intuitive AI
protection tools. Stay tuned. ●
