{"id":29036,"date":"2015-03-24T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T04:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=29036"},"modified":"2015-03-25T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2015-03-24T20:12:10","slug":"afa-prepares-members-for-trowbridge-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2015\/03\/24\/afa-prepares-members-for-trowbridge-report\/","title":{"rendered":"AFA Prepares Members for Trowbridge Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trowbridge Report recommendations could lead to a \u201cgenerational change\u201d in the way the life insurance industry operates, the Association of Financial Advisers has warned, encouraging advisers to familiarise themselves with the issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"AFA<\/a>
AFA CEO, Brad Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an email to members last week, AFA CEO, Brad Fox<\/strong>, said that the outcomes of the recent Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) report into retail life insurance (Report 413) and Recommendation 24 from the Financial System Inquiry (FSI) may have significant impacts on how advisers are paid for providing life insurance advice.<\/p>\n

In response to these two reports, the AFA and Financial Services Council (FSC) formed the joint Life Insurance Advice Working Group (LIAWG), chaired by John Trowbridge<\/strong>. Mr Trowbridge is expected to hand down his final report this week, and Mr Fox said that whilst he remained hopeful that the recommendations would be consistent with what the AFA sees as fair, equitable and practical for all stakeholders, there was no guarantee that the Association would agree with Mr Trowbridge.<\/p>\n

We may agree, agree partially or disagree with Mr Trowbridge\u2019s recommendations<\/h6>\n

\u201cThe various LIAWG members have the task of assisting Mr Trowbridge in understanding and addressing the many issues relating to the provision of personal life insurance advice, the broader life insurance market, and more specifically the concerns raised by ASIC in Report 413,\u201d Mr Fox told members.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne way to consider the role of LIAWG members is that they have been used by Mr Trowbridge as information consultants to assist him in gathering an understanding from which he will arrive at his final recommendations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have exhausted every avenue to provide research and fact-based information to assist Mr Trowbridge in his deliberations. The AFA Board has met four times since the LIAWG process commenced, and as a Board where all voting members are current financial advisers, they have ensured that the AFA has continued to represent advisers and their clients honestly and clearly.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>
John Trowbridge, Independent Chair of the joint FSC-AFA Life Insurance Advice Working Group<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe certainly understand the costs and obligations financial advisers have in providing quality, strategic and compliant financial advice. We know that advisers, particularly those operating in small business practices or as sole-practioners need to achieve a revenue outcome that at least meets their cost to provide quality advice. It is very clear in our minds that simply changing adviser remuneration does not resolve the issues raised by ASIC.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Mr Fox reiterated that the Trowbridge Report would represent the views of Mr Trowbridge, as independent chairman.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the report is released, the AFA Board will determine a response to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may agree, agree partially or disagree with Mr Trowbridge\u2019s recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Fox added that, regardless of the recommendations, advisers should be under no illusion as to the impact the Trowbridge Report would likely have on their business, licensee and clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cInsurers, licensees and advisers will each need to take accountability for their part in improving the overall standard of retail life insurance advice. This is not just an adviser issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trowbridge Report recommendations could lead to a \u201cgenerational change\u201d in the way the life insurance industry operates, the Association of Financial Advisers has warned, encouraging advisers to familiarise themselves with the issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8,270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-associations","category-compliance-regulation","category-remuneration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29036","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}