The important role of Protection and why trust and longevity are primary concerns
Founded in 2015, The Right Mortgage & Protection Network (TRM), working in partnership with its members across mortgages, protection, and general insurance, with specialist propositions for equity release and private medical insurance (PMI).
In the current market, with Consumer Duty regulation now a reality and customer needs becoming more complex, providing this range of expertise is becoming increasingly important.
As such, The Intermediary caught up with CEO Martin Wilson to discuss how TRM has redoubled its focus on supporting its members, whether with training and development, referrals, or career transitions, and why protection in particular must come in from the side-lines.
Introducing the business
According to Wilson, TRM is at its core, a long-term business, run on the premise that it should still be around in 30 years’ time.
“We’re passionate about duty of care,” he says. “Having been in the business for 40 years, my kids are in the business, we’ve got younger members of staff who will take our business forward with the culture that we’ve built – which is about giving mortgage brokers a home for the long term, and at the same time working with them to make sure we’re all getting it right.
“Our ambition is not to sell the business, but to be there long-term. We’re looking at longevity for the people that want to work with us.”
For TRM, embedding a culture that will carry the business through long-term, even during difficult and turbulent times, such as those being fuelled by rising inflation, the cost-of-living crisis, and an increasingly uncertain international stage, means having core values surrounded by a flexible approach.
It also means working with the right people, and in some cases, not working with those who don’t fit the bill.
“We’re not a prescriptive type of network,” Wilson explains. “There are those who can’t work with us, and I think generally they will go somewhere else.
“But there’s people who want to work with a network that is there to help and support them – we’re that sort of network. They understand that we’re very passionate about who our customers are, who we look after, and who our members are, both directly authorised [DA] and appointed representative [AR].”
Ultimately, he adds, the business is built on the premise that the market is full of good people, who thrive on trust, consistency and honesty.
He says: “That’s how you make a reasonable living in this industry, you look after your customers well, talk to them on a regular basis, and make sure they’re happy with your advice. It’s a good long-term strategy, and we just employ the same thinking as a network.”
He notes that this is consistent across its dealings with both DA and AR firms, both of which receive the same package of support, benefits and resources.
Part of that package is the ability to have confidence in referrals, says Wilson: “A lot of that is based on trust. Trust takes a long time – we get more referrals now than we did three years ago, because we’ve sung the same song and have been honest and stuck to what we’ve said.
“For some of our members these will be customers they’ve built relationships with over a long time, and we honour that. Trust is not built in a day – saying it means nothing, you have to prove it and that’s what we’re doing day by day.”
Training and transitions
Working alongside members to support and build their business goes further than just the day-to-day processes for TRM. Indeed, one of its strengths is in the provision of extensive resources and training.
For those without Complete Adviser Status (CAS), TRM offers a bespoke non-CAS academy to help bring them into the market.
“We’ve only been doing that for about two years, but we’ve had quite a bit of success already,” Wilson says. “We have seen people come through from being completely outside the industry to becoming quite proficient, and it’s been quite lucrative for them.”
This is particularly important in an industry where the average age of advisers is increasing, but where demand for expert advice is only on the up. Therefore, pulling in fresh talent and equipping the next generation with the right tools is paramount.
This training also goes past brokers’ first forays into the market, and also helps them train to diversify their business and gain a wider perspective on a holistic suite of products. This can help bolster business at the best of times, but can also help create balance when certain markets take a dip.
Wilson says: “As a market, what we don’t want is dabblers. If someone wants to get into a certain market properly, there is the training to be able to do so, and if not, then it’s better to go for a referral. We can offer both things.”
The network is not just focused on pulling people into the industry, however, but also looking after them for the full lifecycle of their career. At the other end of the spectrum, for example, it offers a retirement transition scheme, that helps those brokers looking to wind back their working hours – or completely leave the market – ensure their clients are taken care of long-term.
“People can semi-retire or completely retire with us, and we will look after their clients for them, and pay them an annual income,” he explains. “The only issue is that sometimes they think it’s too good to be true.”
He adds: “It’s all oriented towards mortgage, protection, PMI brokers, whoever works with us, to support their business. We do it because we like what we do, and we try to embed that culture in everything. We’re not there to police our members, we’re there to support them.”
Regulation and protection
When TRM was first formed, it was primarily focused on selling protection, with mortgages taking a somewhat secondary role. Wilson says the market – and indeed the business – has changed substantially over the years, but that brokers need to go back to a mindset where protection is at the centre of the conversation, not on the periphery.
Wilson says: “What’s odd now is that people just sell mortgages, and don’t sell protection. This whole idea of duty of care – it’s of course about giving them the best advice, but it’s also about understanding that if you’re committing somebody to a mortgage for the majority of their life, it’s proper debt, which should be properly insured.
“If they can’t afford the insurance – the things that will actually keep them in that house – then they should reconsider whether they should actually buy the house.
To this end, the advent of Consumer Duty, which came into effect officially on 31st July, should have a markedly positive effect on the industry, says Wilson. This will be a welcome change to the regulatory landscape, which he says has so far fallen short of the mark.
“I have relatively strong feelings about how regulation has failed the consumer previously,” Wilson explains. “It got rid of the bad some of the bad people, but it didn’t really catch the big bad people.
“Less people are insured, less people save. You just have to hear some of the things people say about how much money they’ve got left in their monthly wage packet, or what they would have if they lost their job. It’s terrible compared with 40 years ago.
“Wasn’t regulation meant to make things better? I’m not sure it has. However, some of the things coming in now seem more practical than they have done for a long time.”
While Wilson admits that the effects of economic instability and rising prices on consumers’ finances cannot be taken away, he notes that they can be softened with the right approach – an integral part of which is implementing the correct protection products for customers’ needs.
He adds: “What I hope the Consumer Duty will do, is press home to advisers that they have a duty of care to be giving this advice, not just signing a person up for a mortgage. Maybe it will be good for the whole industry – we shall see.”
TRM asks its members to clearly document that they have provided protection advice to customers, and Wilson suggests that in the future, consumers who do not opt for a protection product will be asked to sign a disclaimer to prove they were provided with the options.
“If the customer, after the advice, still doesn’t want the product, that’s fine, but document that as well,” he says.
“I think it will actually make people think twice about not just selling the mortgage. It’s more than just a mortgage – it’s in the wording: you have a ‘duty of care’ to look after the customer in all aspects of that mortgage.
“From our conversations with members, the message we are getting is maybe this is just what we needed to force the market down the route where we do give that advice.”
To help its members prepare for changes to the regulatory landscape, TRM reviewed all of its documentation, to ensure it is accessible, easy to read and easy to understand.
He says: “What’s the point of having this regulation to help the consumer, and then giving them ‘War and Peace’, which they won’t read past the first sentence? Everything should be designed to support and help.”
The business also created a Consumer Duty hub, comprising everything from explaining how the new regulation works, to TRM’s own perspective on the different rules being brought in. This information is white-labelled, links out to providers, has gone through readability tests, and is available for brokers to use with consumers if they wish to access it.
It also worked to identify those partners that particularly need training in this area, where they might not have sold protection products in the past.
One of the ways in which TRM is pushing for greater appreciation and understanding of the facets that make up this market is through its PMI Summit, which took place on 5th July this year. The event included industry round-tables and presentations and an awards ceremony, and was open to both DA and AR firms. At the event, the firm also launched its enhanced PMI Demand and Needs Statement, to be used by advisers in line with the Consumer Duty regulations.
“Most people who do PMI are specialists,” Wilson says. “A lot of what were specialist PMI businesses were sold and have gone in all sorts of directions. We wanted to come in and say, we are not just a mortgage network, we are a PMI network. We wanted members to be able to go to an event where all that was being talked about was PMI.”
Protecting the future
For TRM, the future is very much about maintaining its steady course and continuing to provide long-term support for its members and their clients. In addition, Wilson says, events such as the PMI summit denote an intention to remind the market not only of the importance of these products, but also of the network’s central role in their distribution.
“We specialise in PMI, as we do in equity release,” he says. “In the same way we specialist in mortgages and protection. We want to make it clear to people that we’re not a mortgage network that dabbles in PMI. It takes years to build up that reputation and trust.”
Other plans include building up members’ protection business, from around 16% to make up 40% or 50% compared with mortgages.
For the business itself, the plans continue to focus on keeping steady and stable in a volatile market, looking towards the long-term.
“We never wanted to grow the network to be absolutely enormous,” Wilson concludes. “We want to be a reasonable size to get the attention of the providers and where they treat us the same, which sometimes goes with volume rather than quality.”