Advisers are increasingly demanding help with administration issues and product information from their insurance providers, according to the 2013 CoreData Risk Research report, which has also named TAL as its Risk Provider of the Year.
CoreData surveyed over 600 financial advisers to identify the types of support they are looking for from risk product providers. 52.9% of respondents said they wanted their insurer to help with administration issues. This was closely followed by ‘product information to inform management and staff’ (41.6%) and ‘more marketing support’ (40.0%). Only 19.2% said they wanted advice on running a practice.
“We are acutely aware of the impact to advisers’ lives that the FoFA reforms have had both in the lead up to and post introduction,” said CoreData’s Head of Advice, Wealth and Super, Salvador Saiz.
“Regulatory reform has meant that advisers have placed much more importance on administration and other support services than they have in the past from their licensees and service providers.
…while advice with running practices is not currently a priority, we expect it will become increasingly important
“This is clearly shown in CoreData’s broader adviser research as well as the findings from this study, indicating that assistance with admin issues is what advisers most want from their BDMs. We expect this to be the case going forward over the next 12 months as the reforms are digested. Advisers will then next shift to focusing on growth opportunities. So while advice with running practices is not currently a priority, we expect it will become increasingly important.”
The survey also identified what factors led advisers to be most satisfied with their primary insurer, finding that the reputation of the provider was the number one driver of adviser satisfaction in 2013, up from a ranking of 60 in 2012.
Last year’s number one satisfaction driver, a strong customer focus, was ranked number two by advisers in the 2013 survey.
Rounding out the top five satisfaction drivers were:
- A comprehensive product knowledge possessed by BDMs
- The fairness of claims decisions
- Accurate of processing of new business applications (paper based)
Attributes that have dropped in importance for advisers in comparison to 2012 are the extent to which the provider is easy to do business with, that advisers have easy access to sales support information online, and the timeliness of receiving commission statements.
The rating advisers gave their primary insurance provider for 11 core areas of service delivery was then used to determine the overall CoreData Risk Provider of the Year Award. TAL received the highest satisfaction rating (7.99) from its primary advisers, making it the winner of the Award for the second consecutive year.
Zurich was named runner-up, achieving a satisfaction score of 7.92, followed by CommInsure with a score of 7.71.
TAL won 6 out of the 11 service categories, scoring the highest satisfaction rating from advisers for the following core areas:
- New business submissions
- New business underwriting
- Post-sale administration and call centres
- Communications
- Business development and support
- Education and support
TAL Retail Life CEO, Brett Clark, said: “To win this award two years running is a great honour and reflects on the hard work and dedication of the entire TAL team who are singularly focused on delivering the best adviser and customer experience they possibly can.”
“While 2013 has been a challenging year for the industry, as we look forward a fundamental strong and aligned partnership between life insurers and advisers will ensure customers continue to be able to obtain valuable life insurance protection,” Mr Clark added.
TAL is one of the better insurance providers, no doubt about it. Overall the company seems to have it together better than the others.
It seems to me that could also have been said about Aviva. But they’ve left us now in the hands of MLC. That said, TAL and the others generally need to look at the usefulness of BDMs. For one thing, they’re almost never available; when you really need one you can’t get hold of them, even on their mobiles. One positive for BDMs: they do have a good knowledge about their own company’s products.
On claims: I believe that all of our life offices are excellent. They strive to help and to see difficult, even traumatic circumstances, are handled sensitively and in a timely manner. Hats off to them for that! This aspect of our business is very much underplayed in our industry and is one of the key reasons I select a company to business with.
It worries me that TAL still closes off its product series and then relaunched. This isn’t sustainable business practice and for this reason they’ve recently dropped out of my top 4 insurers. Zurich, Macquarie and OnePath have all had their current product series open for 7 years or more with all product updates being passed back and no large premium increases across the board. Better for client, adviser and insurer.
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