Whatpolicy.com {text removed by MSE Forum Team}?

FunLovinCriminal

Hi there
With two young kids we have left planning on the back burner. No will and wife does not have life insurance.
Today we had a door to door salesman from whatpolicy.com offer to do it for us.
I have never heard of them, and always dubious.
Anyone heard/used them before? How reliable are they?

dunstonh

I have never heard of them, and always dubious.

If you were given a list of the 10,000 or so firms that transact in this area, I doubt you would know a single one of them.

However, I have a general rule of thumb to never act on cold calls by phone or door knocking. Plus, door knocking on financial services is virtually unheard of nowadays. It smacks of desperation. Most decent advisory firms have more business than they can handle.

Anyone heard/used them before? How reliable are they?

The question is a bit like asking the world wide web what your local butcher is like. However, we can see from the FCA register that the firm does not hold full permissions. So, a local IFA firm may be better for you.

Zorillo

There's something dubious about a ".com" company going door to door, in my opinion.

antrobus

FunLovinCriminal wrote: »

Hi there
With two young kids we have left planning on the back burner. No will and wife does not have life insurance.
Today we had a door to door salesman from whatpolicy.com offer to do it for us.
I have never heard of them, and always dubious.
Anyone heard/used them before? How reliable are they?

Whatpolicy.com is a trading style of Insurance Advisory Group Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and entered on the FCA register under reference number 718940

Insurance Advisory Group Ltd, registered in England under reference number 09199798

Registered address 3rd floor, 207 Regent Street,London W1B 3HH

http://whatpolicy.com/

FCA register
https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_FirmDetailsPage?id=001b000001YW7QyAAL

forgotmyname

Shame their brand manager cannot read the terms and conditions when signing upto a forum.

dunstonh

Unlike most IFA's we are not independent financial advisers

IFA are the initials for independent financial adviser. So, you are either an IFA or you are not. It cant be most IFAs.

We provide impartial unbiased advice on these products and these products alone.

You typically find that firms that cannot use the term "independent" will use other words that may be misinterpreted by the end consumer to mean the same thing. I am sure you didn't mean that but it is a common misrepresentation used by sales reps trying to give the impression of independent without actually saying the magic word.

In response to the point that we do not hold full permissions, this is a very misleading statement as we are fully regulated by the FCA for providing advice on all aspects of protection insurance which is what our business does. If you wish to call the FCA the government regulatory body you can confirm that we are fully regulated or alternatively go to FCA register which will confirm our full regulation! our FCA official reference number is 718940

Which verifies you do not hold full advice permissions. You are restricted to protection. You are regulated in the areas you transact but not fully regulated in all the areas. Nothing wrong with that but you dont hold full advice permissions.

e.g. if you have a client that has an investment backed whole of life assurance, endowment policy or investment backed PHI you can't give advice on those protection products as you do not hold the regulatory permissions covering those products.

In terms of our marketing approach of going door to door, we have found that this is the best way for us to interact with the general public and to make them aware of our free advisory service.... We do not sell anything at the door and the people working in the field are simply appointment arrangers that give customers the opportunity to review their policy and to arrange a free will,

Free advisory service? Come on. That is old school bad days financial services. It isn't free. It is paid for out of the commission earned on the products you sell. Nothing is free.

I have never heard after 20 years in this industry any adviser saying they are falling over customers, If this is the case I would love to know the secret, however if you simply look at companies house accounts for any advisory firm you will see clearly that this is not the case, In terms of financial strength and revenue we far exceed 95% of all IFA's as our turnover is in the Millions £ making us one of the largest and leading advisory firms for life insurance in the UK trusted by over 10,000 customer across the country

Most IFA firms are small local firms of 2-4 advisers. So, not really a like for like comparison. Maybe if you were full permission advice you would be busier and not need to door knock

I have no problem with your role. I do think the door knocking and pretending the service is free is very 1980s.

DCFC79

forgotmyname wrote: »

Shame their brand manager cannot read the terms and conditions when signing upto a forum.

Nor see the date of when the thread was last replied to.

kingstreet

Unlike most IFA's

The superfluous apostrophe would immediately put me off.

Frazers

So in the end, does anyone know if this is a scam or not?