MARS assesses, measures, and helps manage vulnerability and includes a series of next steps – called treatments, which suggest the appropriate treatment in line with the individual consumer’s characteristics and circumstances.
Now, the integrated benefits calculator also provides the ability to easily check for the broadest range of benefits, social tariffs and local discretionary grants – ensuring that all MARS users can assess any additional benefits available to their customers.
This new feature also allows FCA-regulated firms to ensure that they comply with the FCA’s Consumer Duty – and the fair treatment of vulnerable customers. Under Consumer Duty, it would seem logical to check whether benefits are available prior to entering into a new agreement – since providing a commercial loan, with interest, when such benefits are available could be considered a potential harm to the consumer that can easily be avoided.
The new feature comes as a report from Policy in Practice reveals that UK households are missing out on £19 billion of support each year. There are many reasons for this, but the leading hurdles include administrative complexity, a lack of awareness, stigma and increasing fragmentation of support.
Many households don’t realise that these benefits could apply to them – although Martin Lewis advocates that for anyone earning less than £60,000 per year, it is likely worth taking the time to check what might apply. This situation, together with the rising cost of living, and the introduction of Consumer Duty, makes it even more important that FCA-regulated entities ensure that customers are aware of those benefits to which they are eligible.
Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh, commented: “In the latest release of MARS, we have added over sixty treatments for all sorts of vulnerabilities – and this resource is road-mapped to grow. We believe that expecting advisers and agents to remember all ‘next steps’, and when they should be invoked, is a mammoth task. By using technology to dynamically match treatments to consumers’ need removes the need to provide training for staff on all of these treatments. When the need arises, the user is simply prompted with the suggested treatment in real time.”
“We will continue to work with Inbest, and our customers, to streamline how this works – and maximise the uptake of otherwise lost benefits for consumers.”
Manuel Peleteiro, from Inbest, added: “We believe that integrating benefits checks into current customer journeys is the most effective way to help households find out and manage any benefits to which they are eligible. Our collaboration with MorganAsh is as a perfect example of this working in practice. By integrating our benefits calculator into MARS – and providing personalised, proactive prompts – we ensure that not only are vulnerable customers aware of any potential benefits, it also becomes easier for them to view and manage those benefits.”
MARS is designed to help firms both understand and monitor vulnerable customers – and to deliver good outcomes – as required by Consumer Duty. Through clear and consistent assessments, firms can identify vulnerable characteristics and generate an objective MARS Resilience Rating – much like a credit score.
Last year, MorganAsh added tailored questions focused on potential coercion to its MARS vulnerability assessment. This means firms can more easily identify how vulnerable each client is to the potential risk of coercion, or susceptibility to scams – with results contributing towards their overall Resilience Rating.