{"id":38444,"date":"2017-09-22T14:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=38444"},"modified":"2017-09-28T21:09:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T11:09:02","slug":"transparency-needed-to-restore-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2017\/09\/22\/transparency-needed-to-restore-confidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Transparency Needed to Restore Confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life insurance advice and products need to increase their level of transparency with consumers to re-engage with them and overcome the decline in public confidence in the sector, a new whitepaper from ANZ has claimed.<\/p>\n

\"ANZ<\/a>
ANZ Wealth Head of Life Insurance, Gerard Kerr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The paper, Life insurance: the case for change<\/em>, called for life insurers to invest in innovation but also to engage with heightened compliance requirements, despite their potential to absorb time and resources normally devoted to product development.<\/p>\n

This could take place by insurers accepting \u201c\u2026not just the letter but the spirit of regulatory concerns by creating transparent, core-purpose insurance products that are clearly communicated to the market\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransparency in product design may become more important as insurers introduce innovative, technology-driven solutions for underwriting and product delivery,\u201d the paper stated, adding, \u201cAnd such an approach will also go some way to re-establishing trust and positioning insurance and insurers in a more positive light to the market and authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The paper also stated this transparency should extend to advisers and their fee structures so as to provide clarity and reassurance to consumers that their best interests are being recognised.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost clients are happy with fees when they understand them and they trust advisers when they are in a transparent relationship”<\/h6>\n

Commenting on the paper, ANZ Wealth Head of Life Insurance, Gerard Kerr<\/strong> said regulators were looking from end to end of the life insurance value chain and fees would remain an ongoing part of reviews going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost clients are happy with fees when they understand them and they trust advisers when they are in a transparent relationship. It is a model that is working well and more people should probably use it,\u201d Kerr said.<\/p>\n

The paper noted financial advisers played an important role in making life insurance clearer stating \u201c\u2026they are a very significant partnership channel for life insurers and act as a relatable interface between what are sometimes necessarily complex products and customers in need\u201d.<\/p>\n

While packaging financial advice with insurance products was an effective solution to tackling consumer confusion, the paper stated that insurers could do more towards creating products that were more cost effective or provided \u2018straight forward cover\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final piece of the puzzle is likely to be the introduction of more targeted and clearly di\ufb00erentiated products that leverage new technologies for seamless, personalised underwriting and tailored communications,\u201d the paper stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntroducing clearer products does not necessarily mean restricting or reducing the depth of cover, simply a return to the core purpose of insurance: helping to restore claimants to the state of health and prosperity they enjoyed before they became sick or injured, so they can resume their place in the workforce and continue to enjoy full and satisfying lives,\u201d the paper added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life insurance advice and products need to increase their level of transparency with consumers to re-engage with them and overcome the decline in public confidence in the sector, a new whitepaper from ANZ has claimed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4,270],"tags":[4247],"class_list":["post-38444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-compliance-regulation","category-products","category-remuneration","tag-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38444","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=38444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}