TAL is encouraging advisers to embed estate planning into their core business offering, citing the opportunity it has in improving advisers’ value proposition.
A statement from the insurer says that in TAL Risk Academy’s new courses on estate planning, TAL National Technical Manager, Scott Hoger, explains why including estate planning in a customer’s advice journey can provide significant value to customers.
Hoger says that having a comprehensive estate plan in place is one of the most important things people can do. “However, estate planning can be an overwhelming and confusing process that people can tend to put off until later in life.”
He says that financial advisers have a deep understanding of their customers’ circumstances and financial goals and they are well placed to support customers with their estate planning needs.
“We believe that advisers who embed estate planning into their core business offering will differentiate themselves from others in the market.”
He says that including estate planning in a customer’s advice journey can provide significant value to the customer by helping them to feel more confident about their future and well-equipped to meet their long-term financial goals. It can also help advisers meet their obligations under Corporations Law and the FASEA Code of Ethics.
Hoger notes that it’s important however, to consider how the estate planning process interacts with advice.
“For example, financial advisers have some degree of control over a customer’s largest assets; their property, their superannuation and their insurances. From an insurance perspective, financial advisers can play a key role in ensuring insurance claims proceeds are paid as intended. Additionally, each customer’s assets and liabilities have an estate planning consideration that can be facilitated by the adviser.”
He adds that having the appropriate tools to understand an adviser’s role in the estate planning process is crucial and that the TAL Risk Academy programme has developed a series of courses and support tools to help advisers with their estate planning education.
The four-course programme includes estate planning fundamentals, with options to study the estate planning processes, technical strategies and techniques that advisers can use with their customers.
The estate planning courses run until the end of March 2021, with the Estate Planning Masterclass held on 29-30 March and all courses available on demand.
Click here to enrol in the Masterclass and for further information. Advisers can also contact their local TAL sales representative or click here.
