{"id":53327,"date":"2020-11-24T17:13:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T07:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=53327"},"modified":"2025-09-02T11:33:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T01:33:52","slug":"poll-results-the-value-of-claims-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2020\/11\/24\/poll-results-the-value-of-claims-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll Results &#8211; The Value of Claims Services"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"polls-243\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<div class=\"pollHeader\"><strong>On average, how many hours per case does your business spend on facilitating life insurance claims for your clients?<\/strong><\/div><div id=\"polls-243-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>11 - 20 hours <small>(34%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 34%\" title=\"11 - 20 hours (34% | 36 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Up to 10 hours <small>(25%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 25%\" title=\"Up to 10 hours (25% | 26 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>21 - 30 hours <small>(22%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 22%\" title=\"21 - 30 hours (22% | 23 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>More than 40 hours <small>(13%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 13%\" title=\"More than 40 hours (13% | 14 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>31 - 40 hours <small>(6%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 6%\" title=\"31 - 40 hours (6% | 6 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><div style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_243_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"edb45e75b1\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>Our latest poll results suggest advisers spend a lot of time and deliver a lot of value in serving their clients&#8217; needs at claim time. We&#8217;re thinking this is something about which advisers are already aware, but how should the value of this service be treated?<\/p>\n<p>As we go to press, around one in three advisers (34%) have indicated they average between 11 and 20 hours to help their clients with a claim. This is the most favoured band for advisers, while 23% take up to ten hours and a further 23% clock-up 21 &#8211; 30 hours on average. The other 20% who voted in our poll so far average 31 or more hours per claim.<\/p>\n<p>While the numbers are evenly distributed, perhaps reflecting the variety of advisers and advice businesses taking part in our latest poll, the overall results suggest &#8211; as we&#8217;ve already alluded to &#8211; that most advisers spend a significant number of hours helping their clients at claim time, especially when it comes to Trauma, TPD and IP claims.<\/p>\n<p>In considering this poll question within the framework of the &#8216;commissions-versus-fees&#8217; debate (see: <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2020\/11\/19\/the-case-for-retaining-commissions-continued\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Case for Retaining Commissions &#8230;Continued<\/a>), even when taking conservative numbers based on our results, we can see that the value advisers deliver their clients in helping them with their claims is worth thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if we select an average of 15 hours per claim, which is a low number based on our poll results, and apply a rate of $200 per hour, which is also a medium-low hourly fee, it&#8217;s easy to conservatively chalk up $3,000 worth of value in advisers\/advice businesses helping clients at claim time.<\/p>\n<p>While few advisers actually apply an hourly rate for their financial advice services, especially those who provide significant levels of life insurance advice, is it reasonable for these advisers &#8211; or any adviser &#8211; to charge their clients thousands of dollars to assist with their claims, even though this equates to the value they have delivered?<\/p>\n<p>This conversation quickly becomes one which considers the merits of commissions v fees for advice services, in which the &#8216;pool of commissions&#8217; referred to in <a href=\"https:\/\/brettwright572.lpages.co\/advised-life-insurance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brett Wright&#8217;s paper<\/a> supporting the retention of commissions appears to be a sensible approach towards how advisers have historically funded the time and effort and value they apply to the processes involved in helping their clients with their claims.<\/p>\n<p>As always, there&#8217;s more to say, and everyone will have their own view. So it&#8217;s over to you to vote if you haven&#8217;t yet, and to add your voice to the conversation if you wish, as our poll remains open for another week&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our latest poll results suggest advisers spend a lot of time and deliver a lot of value in serving their clients&#8217; needs at claim time. We&#8217;re thinking this is something about which advisers are already aware, but how should the value of this service be treated? As we go to press, around one in three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8294,49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-53327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-claims","8":"category-polls"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53327","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=53327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}