{"id":34770,"date":"2016-09-27T14:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T04:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=34770"},"modified":"2016-09-28T11:47:51","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T01:47:51","slug":"insurer-changes-under-lif-will-benefit-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2016\/09\/27\/insurer-changes-under-lif-will-benefit-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurer Changes Under LIF Will Benefit Consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumers will benefit under the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) as life insurers make changes to attract and retain new business despite premiums being unlikely to fall, claims an adviser technology service provider.<\/p>\n

\"SuiteBox<\/a>
SuiteBox Regional Sales Manager APAC, Andy Marshall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SuiteBox Regional Sales Manager APAC, Andy Marshall<\/strong> who until recently was with Zurich but has since joined Suitebox, made the claims in a column published on Linkedin<\/a> where he stated there was a danger that LIF could lead to infighting instead of industry self-introspection that examines the threats to a viable advice and life insurance sector.<\/p>\n

He stated that despite concerns that LIF would not benefit consumers, advisers should be looking for consumer orientated change to come from life insurers who will have to work hard to retain both consumer and adviser loyalty under any new commission regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you accept that 50% of new business to an insurer is actually replacement business\u2026and that level of replacement is reduced, then the insurer needs to think pretty quickly about something that will attract business,\u201d Marshall said<\/p>\n

“Customer benefits in this industry are there for us to lead, and create, they are not for us to expect to be delivered without any change to what we do now”<\/h6>\n

\u201cAnd without a premium lever to pull then it needs to be something like: customer loyalty and engagement programmes, additional and adjunct policy holder services, efficiency, simpler products, simpler underwriting, better adviser services that maximise adviser business efficiency and tools and resources that allow an adviser to engage their client more effectively,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake away LIF and there is no reason to do any of the above (in an express manner).\u00a0 This is because for a well-run insurer that is working on internal efficiencies, then a 110% and 10% model, actually works pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall said a failure to make changes, at both the insurer and adviser level, had the potential to allow for new entrants to disrupt the market and that current models would do little to prevent that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf insurance companies don’t look at a complete full chain innovation piece and if advisers don’t innovate and the status quo is kept then watch out.\u00a0Because from overseas players will line up and bring disruptive innovation and client engagement that will capture the attention and the wallets of Australian life insurance buyers and I struggle with how someone using the current insurance process will compete with that,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomer benefits in this industry are there for us to lead, and create, they are not for us to expect to be delivered without any change to what we do now.\u00a0 Status quo for advisers and insurers is a recipe for disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consumers will benefit under the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) as life insurers make changes to attract and retain new business despite premiums being unlikely to fall, claims an adviser technology service provider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4,5,7],"tags":[4247],"class_list":["post-34770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-compliance-regulation","category-products","category-services","category-technology","tag-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34770","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=34770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}