Charging Fees at Claim Time

9
If risk commissions are banned, will your practice charge a fee for providing your services at claim time?
  • Yes (86%)
  • No (8%)
  • Not sure (6%)

As we await the outcome of the closest federal election in recent history, we look ahead to one of the areas that would be impacted if risk commissions are banned.

Our latest poll question is:

If risk commissions are banned, will your practice charge a fee for providing your services at claim time?

If the Labor Government is returned, we will see the continuation of the Future of Financial Advice reforms consultation process, where one of the key questions being asked is whether the proposed ban on commissions from 1 July 2012 should also include commissions on risk products.

If advisers are effectively forced to charge a fee for the insurance advice they provide, does this mean charging fees will also extend to the claims process?

Many advisers consider it a privilege to be able to assist their clients navigate their way through making a claim on their policy, whether that process is difficult or easy (and it’s not often easy!).

But while the thought of charging fees to clients who have submitted insurance claims is a foreign concept to many, possibly most advisers, it is a process that already takes place within some advice practices because of how they are set up.

For example, there are practices that will provide initial contact between client and insurer before offering the client the choice of either conducting the rest of the claim process on their own or involving the advice practice for a fee that reflects the level of their involvement.

Many advisers have pointed out that the commissions they receive on all the policies they write subsidise the often substantial time and effort that can be involved in helping those clients who make claims.

If risk commissions are banned and all clients are charged fees for the insurance advice they receive, many advisers have been questioning how they will be able to afford the time it takes to properly serve their clients’ needs at claim time.

Will some advisers strike agreements with their clients to extract a proportion of the claim benefit payment as their fee?  Will other advisers choose to, or be forced to consider charging a fee, irrespective of whether the claim is successful?

Are there alternative solutions?  Are there methods advisers use now to help their clients at claim time that will still be effective if risk commissions are banned?

We’d like to know what you think.



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