Life insurance and financial advice has rated low among the number of public submissions received by Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry but will still be examined in due course, according to a senior counsel to the Commission.
Addressing the Commission on its opening day, Senior Counsel Assisting the Commissioner, Rowena Orr QC said more than 385 public submissions had been received by the Commission since 22 January 2018 and the volume of submissions had increased each week from that date.
According to Orr, approximately 49 per cent of submissions relate to banking, 18 per cent relate to superannuation, six per cent relate to the general insurance market, and six per cent relate to the life insurance and total permanent disability insurance market.
The submissions have also been broken down into differing areas of the financial services sector with only nine per cent related to financial advice compared with personal finance: 31 per cent, superannuation: 17 per cent, small business finance: 13 per cent and mortgage brokers: 12 per cent.
Despite this, Orr said, “Another area of early focus for the Commission will be the financial planning and wealth management industry”, adding that the FoFA reforms would also be also be examined.
“These reforms have now been in force for four years, although there have been amendments, some of them significant, since then. This Commission presents an important opportunity to evaluate the success of those reforms and inquire into the practices of the financial advisory industry”.
