Panic buying of petrol across the country is threatening to push advisers back into remote working, curtailing the return of client meetings and work in the office.
In August, Health & Protection revealed insurers had started to resume face-to-face meetings with advisers.
But as long queues emerge at petrol forecourts up and down the country, advisers face moving meetings with clients and insurers online.
Steve Ellis, head of employee benefit consulting at Prosperis, told Health & Protection he will need to fill up his car’s tank tomorrow.
“I need to go and seek out some fuel because I have nothing in the tank but to be fair, locally, we had a blip and now we seem to be okay.”
However Ellis said he is not overly concerned if his search is not successful as many of his clients are happy with virtual meetings.
“A lot of our clients, we’re seeing virtually anyway. I’ve seen quite a big reluctance to meet too many outsiders on premises,” he added.
Vast majority want remote meetings
Kate Stratton, mortgage services managing director at Home Mortgage Solutions, echoed those sentiments, adding the vast majority of her clients prefer to carry out meetings over Zoom and Teams.
“Ninety-nine per cent of our clients are happy doing internet meetings now,” she said.
“We work with some estate agents and we go into the offices where possible but they’re usually in local cities so it’s quite easy for people to walk there anyway.”
According to Steve Herbert, head of benefits strategy at Howden Employee Benefits, the lived experience of working from home for 18 months has had its benefits in this situation.
“If you really can’t get fuel, you can just go back to doing everything via the internet so I think it’s probably less of a challenge than it would have been 18 months ago,” Herbert said.
“But it’s still not ideal because we’re all trying to get employees back to offices. We’re all trying to get back to normality and client meetings.
“It’s a new challenge that we didn’t need right now but I don’t think it’s going to cause a major headache going forwards because we’ve got used to doing things remotely.”
Busy October
And as a busy October approaches, Alan Lakey, director at CI Expert, (pictured) told Health & Protection he needs to be in the office more often.
“Fortunately, I’ve got another seven or eight days of petrol in the car I imagine,” Lakey said.
“I’ve got a home office I work from sometimes so it’s not a problem for me as such but for those advisers that have to be in the office for practical reasons, then it’s going to hit them.
“I should be working from home but I’ve been in the office doing bits and pieces.”
And that need to be in the office is ever more important as October looms in to view, Lakey added: “October for whatever reason has always been a busy month.
“Looking at my new business book, typically April, May, October and November are the busy months because they’re outside of the main holiday periods and the kids aren’t at home, so people can focus on things that otherwise they would put off.”