Scottish Widows’ imminent launch of an income protection (IP) product and continuing rollout of its intermediary platform has proven the catalyst for head of intermediary protection distribution Alun Beynon to step back from corporate life after 40 years in the industry.
Beynon (pictured), who broke the news about his departure from Scottish Widows earlier this month, spoke to Health & Protection about his next move and looked back on his 40 years in the sector.
Reflecting on his career, Beynon picked out leading Aegon Protection in the mid to late noughties as a highlight as well as playing an integral role in Scottish Widows re-entering the adviser market following a period running his own consultancy.
But Beynon also maintained there are key geographic differences in advisers’ ability to sell protection and added that there is something to be learned from the fact that some customers actually prefer a non-advised approach when buying protection.
Missed opportunities
“I’ve been fairly outspoken over the last few years with advisers, and I haven’t used the press as a soapbox, but I don’t think we’re doing a great job at selling protection,” Beynon said.
“There are too many missed opportunities and Consumer Duty is asking people to look at new ways of working.
“We’ve got so much in the market in terms of the distribution models that have evolved and we spend so much time criticising telesales advice or the telesales unadvised concept without stopping to think; actually, let’s put the good and the bad aside for one minute, let’s just look at the fact that customers are happy to take protection advice or the guided sale over the phone and say to other channels, what can you learn from that?”
Geographic divide
And Beynon added he has noticed a geographic divide between mortgage advisers and their abilities around selling protection.
“If you go over to Northern Ireland and start telling them how to sell protection, they’ll bounce you right out of their office because they’re world class at selling protection alongside a mortgage.,” he continued.
“But when you come down to London, and you gravitate south, they get worse and worse.
“And so you have got notionally something like a 15% take up rate of protection to mortgages. You are saddling people with the biggest debt they’ve ever had so why aren’t you doing it? And there are a whole gamut of excuses.
“Suffice to say if you look at the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries report in February, it said 64% of people with mortgages don’t have protection.
“We think that’s an exaggeration. Lloyds Bank Group would put it more at 50% but that still feels like a huge gap, call it gap or call it an opportunity.
“I’m going to try and reduce the gap. That depends on people wanting help and support but that’s the intent and I’m just motivated by my own personal experience and so forth.”
And he believes there is still much work to do to re-engage the intermediary market in selling protection in the wealth and mortgage spaces.
“I was speaking to a network this afternoon for the last half hour who have got really poor engagement in protection and I was giving them some insight in terms of the sorts of things they might want to do,” he continued.
Beynon maintained advisers who are not selling enough protection need to question if they have the right processes in place.
Key achievements
Leading on to his next move, Beynon explained: “I’m actually stepping back from corporate life and so on the 30 August I’ll have done 40 years, 27 of which were with Aegon and the last 10 have been with Scottish Widows.”
“There have been a number of achievements I’m especially proud of but leading Aegon Protect in 2006 to 2010 was a highlight. I resigned from Aegon that year and set up my own consultancy.
“Then I was brought into Lloyds Banking Group to build the business case to bring Scottish Widows back into the intermediary market in 2015, which is what I did.
“My friends and colleagues Esther Dijkstra and Scott Cadger were hugely influential in that process and are both massively talented people.”
Geoff Haines
In terms of his greatest mentor over his career, Beynon picks out the late Geoff Haines.
“My greatest mentor was Geoff Haines, sadly deceased and former national sales manager at Guardian Royal Exchange – his energy, commitment and passion were self-evident,” he said.
“But his conviction in the products we sold – supporting people at their time of need – was a huge influence in my formative years. A great man.”
Imminent product launches
But elaborating on what prompted Beynon’s departure, he pointed to imminent product launches exclusively revealed by Health & Protection back in September 2022.
“We’re on the cusp of launching a brand new platform and launching income protection into the market,” he said.
“Rose St Louis is leading that and I just felt when we launch that, that’s a good break point to step away and say: ‘Right, let the youngsters get on with taking that forward’ because you really have to give that a three to five-year timeframe.
“And of course I’m 62 so I’m not going to make that three to five-year timeframe commitment – so there’s that natural breakpoint.”
Beynon added he is careful not to use the word retirement, but even with the recruitment process for his successor already under way, for now he revealed the product launches are a major focus ahead of his exit at the end of August.
“I’m that busy at the moment in terms of trying to get Scottish Widows’ cherries all lined-up regarding the new platform and getting the rollout planned for IP that I haven’t got round to properly thinking or planning for that, but we’ll cross that bridge,” he added.