ClearView Wealth has reported that more than 60% of its advised life insurance business is written by advisers from licensees outside the group, and that in-force life insurance premiums have grown by 30% in the past ten 10 months.
This growth came about despite ClearView having phased back on its direct insurance business volumes as part of an effort to redesign and redirect that business toward the mid-market.
In a market update released by the group, ClearView stated its force life insurance premiums had grown to $142.3 million and that new business was up 8% to $30.1 million for the 10 months to 30 April 2015.
Much of this growth came within ClearView’s advised LifeSolutions portfolio where new business was up 20% to $26.4 million until the end of April with 62% of that business coming from third party advisers accessing third party Approved Product Lists on which ClearView was listed.
ClearView said it would continue to focus on expanding its distribution reach and access to the third party adviser market after new business from that sector was up 44% with the prior comparable period with ClearView also lifting its exposure on APLs by 37% on the prior comparable period, to a total of 248.
In the update ClearView stated that it had already flagged an intentional slow-down in its non-advice business in the first half of the 2106 financial year which it said resulted in 36% reduction in new business, equal to $3.7 million to the end of April.
ClearView, Managing Director, Simon Swanson said this was the result of repositioning this business towards the mid-market, which he described as ‘people who tend to buy private health insurance’, with plans to ramp up that part of the business in the second half of 2016.
The release of the figures was part of a market update used by ClearView to announce the issuing of 59 million new shares to raise funds to repay debt and drive growth.
The offer would seek to raise $50 million dollars to repay a $45.5 million CBA Debt Funding Facility and to retain the remaining $4.5 million as capital for growth.
