More than a quarter of advisers have reported spending up to 100 hours on the phone with underwriters each year, according to research from IPipeline.
The findings were taken from a survey of 792 advisers, with 617 answering the questions on protection.
Of advisers who responded to the question, “How much of your time (in hours) do you spend on the phone to underwriters each week?” 48% said less than one hour while 30% said one to two hours.
Over the course of a year, this results in a total of 52 to 104 hours per adviser – or hours that could be spent advising, helping build financially resilient households.
However, 13% of respondents said they spent two to five hours each week on the phone to underwriters, while 3% said they spent five hours – or more.
This means that more than one in 10 respondents could be spending more than 250 hours on calls to underwriters every year.
Despite these issues, advisers remain largely positive about the future.
When asked, “Out of 10, how positive are you about the demand for protection advice over the next year?” (with 10 the most positive),” 30% of respondents gave a score of 10, while 74% gave a score of eight or higher.
And when asked, “Out of 10, how likely are you to still be working as a protection adviser in five years? (with 10 the most likely),” nearly half (47%) gave a 10 score, while 78% gave a score of eight or higher.
Roy McLoughlin, spokesperson for the Protection Distributors Group, said: “Lengthy application processes and outdated approaches to underwriting can consume an adviser’s time, which is the most inefficient part of the protection sales process.
“It’s obviously important for an insurer to be able to assess risk but there must be more efficient ways to do it. Advisers should be spending their time advising clients, not chasing applications.”
Paul Yates, product strategy director at IPipeline, said: “This data indicates that we have a highly motivated and positive advice sector that could — and should — be empowered to advise and sell more protection policies. More efficient underwriting appears to be a key area where we can make a difference.
“We are committed to working with providers and advisers to speed up the underwriting process and avoid valuable time being lost.”
