This blog post is one I put in place on the blog around two years ago but given some new marketing work I am putting together to get the message out to a range of new quality IFA prospects I thought it really was worth looking at and re-publishing. Obviously the dates and timescales do not match as this refers to a now old introducer who has been up and running with me now for over a year.
I now work pretty much exclusively with professional introducers as my distribution channel and have one of the highest profiles in the UK in this area - it is vital therefore that my prospective introducers can get a feel for who I am and how I work and this article and others on the blog give some vital pointers.
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| Phil Knight - Independent Healthcare Consultant |
For more information on working with me as an introducer call me on : 07792 075748 or e-mail : philknight@pch.uk.com or DM me on Twitter @localventure1
Setting up a new IFA Introducer
I had this idea this afternoon to run through on the blog (and other on-line sources) a current case study running through the process of finding, working with and then setting up a new introducer for private medical insurance. I've found these blog posts covering my work with introducers to be amongst the most popular on the blog and immensely useful to me from a business point of view - my google searches for this area are very strong and I regularly pick up new introducers on the back of people reading my copy and replying or feeding back.
Finding the introducer
The case I will use as the main 'inspiration' in this article is a Wealth Management multi adviser IFA practice based in the South East of England. I first contacted them in April/May this year.
We came across each other via Linkedin and I began speaking initially to their compliance manager. After a week or two of send e-mails back and forth I arranged to meet one of his colleagues for a coffee in Leeds when he was visiting one of their advisers in the local area. This session was really a 'getting to know you' meeting and we discussed in the main my experience, advisory process and both organisations due diligence process for working with other parties.
I tend to find my introducers in one of two ways, the first is fairly obvious as I work with a number I have had dealings with in the past, primarily advisers I interacted with between 1994 and 2007 when I worked as a broker consultant for a variety of medical insurers (WPA, Guardian Health, PPP, BCWA Healthcare, Standard Life Healthcare and First Assist). I do also regularly find them via Linkedin (check out my profile here) and find this business social network enormously useful and I suspect I will use it more and more in coming years.
Building the relationship
The initial session described above went extremely well (to the point that the individual I met with referred me to his brother who is an adviser with another company to look at a case for him) and following referral upwards to director level I ended up travelling South in early October to present to the person who historically had dealt with non-regulated products in the business and was keen to include PMI in a suite of general insurance products he was putting together. As is often the way we were really speaking from the same song sheet and we were able to agree a plan whereby I would present to the teams sales meeting in the near future. The presentation format was agreed and I actually did this presentation earlier this week.
Sales Presentation
The basis of my sales presentation to this kind of audience is to keep things high level and non-technical. My job is not to teach advisers about PMI but rather to give basic knowledge and thus confidence to raise PMI with the right kind of client. So I generally use a five or six slide overview of
me and my practice including details of the medical insurance market, how my advisory practice works with introducers and their clients and finally some key sales and client segmentation support.
Again this presentation went extremely well and we are now in the process of filling in the paperwork to set up the introducer agreement. I am also awaiting details to quote on the IFA's own medical insurance scheme to review as well !
Although I won't detail all the paperwork and admin process here, the introducer agreement process we use is a two stage affair. Firstly I need to collate some basic regulatory, due diligence and identity information in an introducer 'fact find' which I then send over to the Premier Choice compliance team who check with the FCA database and then issue the final introducer agreement for checking and final sign off.
The above process whilst not necessarily 'standard' (some introducers take more work and some less) is certainly representative of the kind of work I do when creating the relationship with a new introducer, particularly in the IFA sector - of course, having done all this is when the hard work of developing business for and with the new introducer begins in earnest.
if your practice or anyone you know would like to work with me in developing medical insurance as an income stream for your business and to offer better advice for your clients please do feel free to contact me :
07792 075748
philinight@pch.uk.com
Finding the introducer
The case I will use as the main 'inspiration' in this article is a Wealth Management multi adviser IFA practice based in the South East of England. I first contacted them in April/May this year.
We came across each other via Linkedin and I began speaking initially to their compliance manager. After a week or two of send e-mails back and forth I arranged to meet one of his colleagues for a coffee in Leeds when he was visiting one of their advisers in the local area. This session was really a 'getting to know you' meeting and we discussed in the main my experience, advisory process and both organisations due diligence process for working with other parties.
I tend to find my introducers in one of two ways, the first is fairly obvious as I work with a number I have had dealings with in the past, primarily advisers I interacted with between 1994 and 2007 when I worked as a broker consultant for a variety of medical insurers (WPA, Guardian Health, PPP, BCWA Healthcare, Standard Life Healthcare and First Assist). I do also regularly find them via Linkedin (check out my profile here) and find this business social network enormously useful and I suspect I will use it more and more in coming years.
Building the relationship
The initial session described above went extremely well (to the point that the individual I met with referred me to his brother who is an adviser with another company to look at a case for him) and following referral upwards to director level I ended up travelling South in early October to present to the person who historically had dealt with non-regulated products in the business and was keen to include PMI in a suite of general insurance products he was putting together. As is often the way we were really speaking from the same song sheet and we were able to agree a plan whereby I would present to the teams sales meeting in the near future. The presentation format was agreed and I actually did this presentation earlier this week.
Sales Presentation
The basis of my sales presentation to this kind of audience is to keep things high level and non-technical. My job is not to teach advisers about PMI but rather to give basic knowledge and thus confidence to raise PMI with the right kind of client. So I generally use a five or six slide overview of
me and my practice including details of the medical insurance market, how my advisory practice works with introducers and their clients and finally some key sales and client segmentation support.
The Premier Choice Healthcare introducer process.
Again this presentation went extremely well and we are now in the process of filling in the paperwork to set up the introducer agreement. I am also awaiting details to quote on the IFA's own medical insurance scheme to review as well !
Although I won't detail all the paperwork and admin process here, the introducer agreement process we use is a two stage affair. Firstly I need to collate some basic regulatory, due diligence and identity information in an introducer 'fact find' which I then send over to the Premier Choice compliance team who check with the FCA database and then issue the final introducer agreement for checking and final sign off.
The above process whilst not necessarily 'standard' (some introducers take more work and some less) is certainly representative of the kind of work I do when creating the relationship with a new introducer, particularly in the IFA sector - of course, having done all this is when the hard work of developing business for and with the new introducer begins in earnest.
if your practice or anyone you know would like to work with me in developing medical insurance as an income stream for your business and to offer better advice for your clients please do feel free to contact me :
07792 075748
philinight@pch.uk.com
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