After originally joining financial services as a web programmer, Alan was quickly tempted by the dark side of financial services and became a protection adviser. Alan now runs Cura, a multi award winning protection intermediary specialising in hard to place protection cases, ie for people with existing health conditions. Alan is also a founding member of the Access to Protection Insurance group, and is the current chair of the Protection Distributors Group (PDG).

Alan Lakey has been gainfully occupied in the industry since 1978. He's been a financial adviser since 1986 and started the acclaimed CIExpert system in 2012. He is an ex-Director of Adviser Alliance and an ex-Council member of APFA. He also spent eight unhappy years working for an assortment of insurers and distributors and is the winner of 20 awards for advisory excellence. He is the author of Growing Old Disgracefully, a biography of seminal ‘60s rock band The Pretty Things and recently wrote ‘Idiocy in Commercial Life: Practical Ways to Navigate Through Nonsense'.

Angela has been in financial services for 33 years. Starting her working life in Barclays Bank and after 22 years furthering her career as an independent mortgage and protection adviser. Progressing to become a business development manager at Royal London in 2014, and latterly with Zurich in 2018. Inspired by training she received at Royal London, Angela took it upon herself to become an NLP practitioner in 2017. Her experience, not only in advising and business development, but also in NLP led to the creation of Angela’s company in 2018. ‘Passion for Protection’ was borne from Angela’s absolute passion to provide innovative protection sales training. Her mission, to fuel great protection conversations that will result in more clients being protected. An avid reader, Ted Talks follower and lifelong learner.

*Neuro Linguistic Programming

Claire Ginnelly has been in the private medical insurance industry since 1991. Before joining Premier Choice Group in June 2013, all her experience was gained working for large insurance companies and always working on the intermediary distribution. She has held senior positions within Standard Life Healthcare, as Head of Intermediary Sales, and Groupama Healthcare, as Head of Distribution. Claire started her career in Healthcare with Norwich Union Healthcare (now Aviva) and then moved to WPA before joining Standard Life Healthcare. In June 2013, Claire joined Premier Choice Group as Head of Healthcare and became Managing Director in June 2015. Premier Choice is an intermediary specialising in Healthcare and Risk products.

Started at LifeSearch 13.5yrs ago, started out as an adviser – after 8yrs hung up my headset and joined the L&D team as a development coach, made my way to L&D Specialist, and about 18mths ago was promoted to Head of Learning and Development at LifeSearch. Alongside developing the various training for all our ‘Searchers, I work alongside Tom around the developing of our insurer relationships, ensuring we are all working together for the unified goal of protecting as many families as possible.

Monica Garcia is a Psychologist working in the Life & Health Insurance industry. She provides expert consultancy in holistic claims management solutions, including the design and implementation of large scale return-to-work rehabilitation programmes for Disability Claims portfolios, for UK, and overseas insurance clients. Monica also provides consultancy on product design, training and the implementation of research strategies to better understand and manage health risk effectively. Monica's specialist research interest, is related to the role of beliefs and social factors in the recovery process, with a particular focus on work stress and the role of resilience. At Swiss Re, Monica lead pioneering award winning research, evaluating the role of psychosocial factors in return to work at claims and underwriting level. She’s been invited to share her expertise and research at international conferences in the UK and overseas. Prior to joining Swiss Re in 2010, Monica worked in a variety of clinical settings in the UK, including CBT based Condition Management Programmes for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Occupational health, Vocational case management and rehabilitation counselling. Monica moved to the UK in 2001 as an undergraduate psychology student. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate education in London. She maintains her interest in mental health issues related to her home country, Bolivia, and has published in the Journal of International Psychiatry. "Mental Health in the Plurinational State of Bolivia" (2011) Vol 8 No 4.

Naomi started her career working in the corporate space of the Life Assurance sector in 2002, helping advisers understand the products available in the UK market whilst giving training and development on the benefits of personal and business products. In 2014 Naomi founded specialist brokerage Heath Protection Solutions, which offers Private Clients and Businesses whole of market advice on a full range of insurance solutions. In addition to running her own business Naomi has brought her deep understanding of the UK life assurance market to LDNfinance as Protection Director, where she supports the development of their protection advice to mortgage clients. Naomi has become an Ambassador for the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), working to raise awareness of the importance of protection products for women. She speaks at events in London on the education and guidance of young women and the importance of protecting their futures regularly appearing at events such as ‘She’s on the Money’. Recently awarded the Woman of the year in Protection Advice Award at the Women in Financial Awards 2019, Naomi looks to continue raising the awareness of the need for Protection Advice by supporting the education of both brokers and clients.

Roshani Hewa is the Assistant Director, Head of Protection and Health, having previously worked at the ABI as Assistant Director, Head of Savings Policy. She is responsible for leading the ABI’s strategy and policy development on protection and health policy issues. She joined ABI in September 2017 from Barclays, having joined in 2011 and was responsible for engaging with UK regulators (PRA/FCA/PSR) to optimise outcomes for Barclays; developing and communicating insights on regulatory engagement internally and externally. Primary focus was on Barclays UK businesses i.e. Mortgages, Personal Banking, UK Cards and Treasury. Prior to Barclays, Roshani worked at KPMG for 5.5 years.

Steve has over thirty years’ experience working in the life insurance market in the UK, Europe and the Far East. A Chartered Insurer, he has been responsible for some of the more innovative developments within the protection market specifically wrapping around the customer. This includes premium discounts under critical illness policies, the introduction and development of second opinion services in the UK, as well as developing propositions to turn the inconvenience of a health screening into a positive one for the customer. Originally training as an underwriter, Steve has extensive experience of working in product development, distribution management and risk assessment. Currently he is a board member for LegaCare and ILAG.