{"id":28790,"date":"2015-02-24T13:37:49","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T02:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=28790"},"modified":"2015-02-24T16:26:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T05:26:42","slug":"28790","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2015\/02\/24\/28790\/","title":{"rendered":"The Question of &#8216;Commission&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"polls-136\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<div class=\"pollHeader\"><strong>In order to improve the public perception of advisers, the word 'commission' should be replaced by a new term, such as 'adviser service fee'<\/strong><\/div><div id=\"polls-136-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>Agree <small>(63%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 63%\" title=\"Agree (63% | 167 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Disagree <small>(33%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 33%\" title=\"Disagree (33% | 87 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Not sure <small>(5%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 5%\" title=\"Not sure (5% | 13 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><div style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_136_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"76fb65bb38\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>Our latest poll asks you to consider a call to replace the term &#8216;commission&#8217; in order to help enhance the public perception of advisers.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->In its <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2015\/02\/24\/narrow-apls-not-in-clients-interests\/\">submission<\/a> to the Life Insurance and Advice Working Group, ClearView Wealth has suggested the industry explore the possibility of eliminating the word &#8216;commission&#8217; from its lexicon because of the negative connotations the public generally associates with this word, and replace it with a term such as &#8216;adviser service fee&#8217;.<\/p>\n<h6>&#8230; changing language to focus on the desired outcome is always an important element<\/h6>\n<p>We acknowledge the obvious, namely that calling &#8216;commission&#8217; by another name doesn&#8217;t alter the fact that it&#8217;s still commission, and remains a form of conflicted remuneration.\u00a0 The point of this exercise relates entirely to perception, rather than reality. As ClearView CEO, <strong>Simon Swanson<\/strong>, points out, &#8220;Whenever change in attitudes are called for in society, changing language to focus on the desired outcome is always an important element. This would also potentially help advisers better explain their value proposition and remuneration structure without the discussion being overshadowed by the negativity surrounding the word &#8216;commission'&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>We note comments by advisers in previous polls, where they have observed that their clients rarely, if ever, question how they are paid for their life insurance advice services. This often-expressed comment seems to indicate that when it gets down to adviser, client and decision-making time, the word &#8216;commission&#8217; has little relevance. But again, the point of ClearView&#8217;s argument relates to perception, and whether more clients would walk through the door in the first place, and reach that decision-making point with advisers if the word &#8216;commission&#8217; was no longer used, or perceived as being used, by the broader public.<\/p>\n<p>We know you&#8217;ll have your own views on this matter. On the surface, you may consider this debate to have little meaning when compared with the current debate surrounding how advisers will or should be paid in future for their life insurance advice. But if the court of public opinion matters, then so, too, does the question about whether the word &#8216;commission&#8217; should continue to be used.<\/p>\n<p>As always, we welcome your contribution to this debate, on which we will report the outcome next week&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our latest poll asks you to consider a call to replace the term &#8216;commission&#8217; in order to help enhance the public perception of advisers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-polls","category-remuneration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}