Changes in insurance, pensions and platforms landscapes this autumn: speed and communication are vital for success

Financial services sector head John Salmon brings you insight and analysis on what really matters in the world of financial services.

Regulations recently put in place to reflect public policy concerns are having a profound effect on financial services this autumn, with the worlds of insurance and pensions both facing major changes which will have significant systems implications.

Test Achats and re-evaluating risk

This week gender-neutral insurance, an outcome of the Test-Actas ruling of last March, attracted attention with LV= unveiling its plan to switch to gender-neutral rates before the deadline, amidst reports of some advisers remaining completely unaware of the rulings effect.

The ruling comes into effect in December and while insurers may want to offer pre-gender rates for as long a period as possible, there are obviously benefits in reacting early.

An insurer's future market share may be influenced by how well it reacts to the new requirements. It may be as EU Vice-President Vivianne Reding suggested some time ago that "insurers that move to a unisex tariff first will have a competitive advantage".

Firms have only a little time left to ensure that both automated systems and internal processes and controls are responsive to the new requirements. And it also seems that the ability to communicate the changes effectively with both clients and advisers may be just as important.

Auto-enrolment

Meanwhile in the world of pensions many organisations are coping with the upheaval of auto-enrolment. The UK's biggest companies have only until next week to put in place systems to make sure workers are automatically enrolled in pensions schemes unless they opt out.

NEST is continuing to urge employers to prepare early. As we noted some time ago, those that wait until the last minute will face extra costs.

Platforms

In platforms news, research by Defaqto has suggested that financial advisers are regularly switching between platform providers. Interestingly, processing times and systems reliability were two issues that were identified for areas where improvement is needed.

The figures also indicate that there is still much growth to be had in the adviser platform market. FTAdviser highlight that 8,400 IFA firms have not yet adopted a platform.

In the direct to consumer space, the FSA reminded execution-only platforms to assess the extent to which they provide consumers with advice. The FSA's warning, "if it looks and feels like advice then it probably is advice from a consumer's point of view."