You will be able to run a review that updates the client's situation and checks the existing plan still fits.
A year after Hafiz and Nadia bought their cover, Wei Ling calls to book their review. Nadia sounds wary. "Is this where you sell us something else?" It is a fair question. Many clients have only ever heard from a representative when there was a new product to discuss, so they assume a review is a sales meeting with a friendlier name. How you run the review decides whether they are right.
A review exists because the fact-find you did a year ago is now out of date. People's lives move, and their financial needs move with them. The events that matter most are the ones that change income, dependants, debts or health: a new job or a lost one, marriage or divorce, a child, a home loan or a larger one, a parent falling ill or moving in, a diagnosis, a business started.
Any one of those can make a plan that fitted perfectly last year a poor fit now. A new job may mean group cover has stopped or changed. A second child changes how much the family needs if the main income stops. A parent's illness may add a dependant and drain savings at the same time. None of that shows up on a policy statement. You only learn it by asking.
So begin the review the same way you began the fact-find: with the client's life, not their policies. Do not open the folder until you have heard what has happened since you last met.
Wei Ling opens with: "Before we look at anything you have, tell me what's changed in the last year. Work, family, health, money, anything." Then she works through the main areas with gentle follow-ups. Has either of your jobs changed? Any change to your home loan or other debts? Anyone new depending on you, or anyone who no longer does? Any health changes I should know about? Have your goals moved?
Nadia mentions she went back to work part-time three months ago, and that Hafiz's father had a minor stroke and now needs help at home. Neither of those would have come up if Wei Ling had started by walking through the policy schedule.
Update the fact-find with everything that has changed, and date the update. Treat it with the same care as the original. If the review leads to a new recommendation, this updated fact-find is what it rests on, and lesson 4.1, What a reasonable basis looks like on paper, applies in full.
Only after the update do you look at the existing plan, and the question is not "what else could they buy?" It is "does what they have still fit what they now need?"
Go through each existing policy or holding against the updated needs. Is the cover still the right amount given the changed income and dependants? Are premiums still affordable on the new cash flow? For investments, has the client's time horizon or capacity for loss changed? Has anything lapsed, or is a premium overdue?
For Hafiz and Nadia, the cover still fits the mortgage. Nadia's part-time income reduces their surplus, so Wei Ling checks the premium is still comfortable, and it is. Hafiz's father's illness raises a question about the family's own health cover and emergency savings, which Wei Ling notes as a need to discuss rather than a product to sell.
Life events also change who should receive money if the client dies. A review is the natural time to check that the records still say what the client wants.
Check the nominations on the client's policies where relevant, and remind them that CPF nominations are separate. CPF savings are not distributed by a will. They are paid out according to a CPF nomination made with the CPF Board, so a client who has married or had a child may need to look at that too. Point them to the CPF Board website for how to make or update one, and record in your notes that you raised it and what the client decided. For policy nominations, follow the insurer's and your firm's process, and update the records when a change is made.
Sometimes the review finds nothing that needs to change. The client's life is stable, the plan still fits, the nominations are right. That is a good result, and it should be recorded as one.
Write it down: date of review, what you asked, that nothing material had changed, that the existing plan was checked against the updated fact-find and still fits, and that no new recommendation was made. That note is evidence of a review that did its job. It also shows the client what you said at the start: the review is about them, not about selling.
At the end of the meeting, Nadia says, "That was less painful than I expected." She also asks whether Wei Ling would talk to Hafiz's sister, who has just had a baby.
A good review follows a pattern, so it is worth writing your agenda down once and using it every time. Life-event questions come first, then the fact-find update, then the check of existing plans, then nominations, and only then any new needs. In the activity below you write that one-page agenda with the questions you will ask before any product comes up.
Write a one-page annual review agenda with the life-event questions you will ask before discussing any product.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).