Connect for Intermediaries has appointed specialist protection advisers Umbrella Protect to its panel.

The partnership comes as part of Connect’s efforts to transform how protection is sold.

Umbrella Protect’s advisers will provide Connect’s network members with support and offer protection advice to all clients referred by Connect advisers and its network members, including critical illness, income protection, life assurance and business insurance for key workers and buildings & contents insurance.

The appointment follows a recent report from the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, which found that that while 97 per cent of mortgage advisers raise the subject of protection with their clients only 36 per cent ever remember it being mentioned by their adviser.

Connect for Intermediaries chief executive Liz Syms (pictured) says: “We are committed to ensuring that every borrower is protected. Since the pandemic, the need for protection has been heightened, amongst both advisers and their clients. At the same time, the gaping hole that is the protection gap has been clearly illustrated in the AMI report, highlighting the desperate need for good quality advice.

“While awareness of the need for protection has grown, demand for mortgages has also increased, so while some advisers are keen to provide protection advice, many just do not have the time. Others do not know the protection market well enough, or prefer to focus on just the mortgage.

“This protection gap cannot be allowed to continue unabated so we have partnered with Umbrella Protect as the first step in making sure all our advisers and their clients have access to a market-leading protection specialist. We need to play our part in making sure our members’ clients always have protection advice available to them. We believe Umbrella, with their complete focus on offering quality protection advice, will play an important role in making sure all of our clients are put in an informed position.”

Umbrella Protect managing director Anna Glod says: “The AMI report illustrates that for many mortgage advisers, understandably their focus is on the mortgage and they do not push for protection. Advising on protection is a very different mindset to arranging a mortgage. With a mortgage you want to find the cheapest; with protection the cheapest is very often the wrong advice for the client.

“The protection solutions available from the different providers change on a daily basis, just as mortgages do. So, it is almost impossible for anyone not advising on protection all day, every day to find the right solution, covering the right conditions for each individual client. Most mortgage advisers just do not have the time to phone round multiple protection providers to carry out pre-underwriting research and analyse which solution is the best before presenting their advice.

“This is the service we will be providing for every Connect adviser who wants it.”