{"id":63770,"date":"2022-12-07T18:23:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T07:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=63770"},"modified":"2024-10-30T08:43:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T22:43:09","slug":"speaking-for-the-silent-majority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2022\/12\/07\/speaking-for-the-silent-majority\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking for the Silent Majority"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Long-time industry contributor, Peter Stathis, stands up in support of the value of advised life insurance in this honest and challenging reflection on the state of the retail life insurance advice sector – and in doing so, sends some pointed messages to some of his peers\u2026<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michelle Levy\u2019s<\/strong> review into the Quality of Advice correctly acknowledges that the unrelenting and often painful reforms financial advisers have endured since the implementation of the FoFA mandates have given consumers the professionalism they deserve. Nonetheless, this has come at great cost to our numbers and to clients in the fees they now pay for professional advice. Principal among the issues we face is the future of advised life Insurance, which I can only describe as being on \u201clife support.\u201d I\u2019ll come to that later.<\/p>\n

Coming back to Levy\u2019s recent comments, this would be the first time in my memory that a government commissioned review process has recognised that as professionals, financial advisers can be entrusted to serving clients \u2013 not just in a fiduciary capacity \u2013 but going one step further in acknowledging that we are capable of judging what constitutes good advice. We can only now hope that the final outcome will help to improve the way advice is delivered.<\/p>\n

I will try to now speak for the many professionals who are getting on with the task of giving excellent advice. This is in sharp contrast to the \u201canonymous noisy minority\u201d who persist with filling comments sections in some publications with unhelpful \u201cgutter talk\u201d about the reasons for life insurance being where it is.<\/p>\n

So, what is it that ticks me off?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the anonymous noisy minority among us who persistently charge like bulls at our member representative bodies. Their recent barbs to the FPA\u2019s QAR response, took aim at one FPA recommendation that life insurers make more fee collection options available on retail insurance. Things may have changed post TAL acquiring them, but as I recall, BT’s retail life policies offered a wide array of fee collection options which, despite their availability, were rarely if ever selected over standard commission both before and after the LIF changes. So, I certainly agree that introducing more adviser payment options – while welcome – will do little to improve the difficult days being experienced in advised retail life insurance right now.<\/p>\n

What purpose is served in telling our own about our problems…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What purpose is served in telling our own about our problems, persistently blasting criticism and vitriol aimed at representative associations with claims these organisations are out of touch and do nothing?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard you and I\u2019ve had enough of the regular statements that the AFA and FPA did nothing to get a better LIF outcome for financial advisers. This is incorrect and unfair. I closely followed member (Trowbridge) updates coming from both organisations post ASIC\u2019s Report 413 (which certainly was not based on random data) and the reality is, neither of the professional member bodies was given much room to move, such was the regulators (and government\u2019s) resolve at the time.<\/p>\n

Comments that insurers distribution costs have decreased following the implementation of the LIF reforms also need to be called out as incorrect. The fact is that post LIF cumulative commissions paid to advisers exceed what insurers historically paid (pre-LIF) by the fifth anniversary after policy inception. While I accept the LIF reforms played their part in contributing to the current malaise, they are just one element feeding the growing chorus of financial advisers telling me that advising and implementing life advice is a poor commercial use of their time.<\/p>\n

Critical to the success of this rebuild will be the need for a new approach to sustainable pricing…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right now, advised life Insurance has its own unique set of complex issues and as I see things, we are not far from the point at which all participants will need to draw breath and start afresh in rebuilding this once great advice channel. Critical to the success of this rebuild will be the need for a new approach to sustainable pricing that insulates existing policy holders from the premium \u201cshocks\u201d we\u2019ve all experienced during the past five years, but importantly which keeps our cover affordable for the duration of its need.<\/p>\n

As for you noisy few, you can definitely make a difference. Become visible, turn your drive and energy away from your own peers and towards the \u201cjoint consumer groups\u201d who along with the ISA persist with their unfounded ideological calls for a complete ban of life insurance commissions. As you can see from AFA CEO Phil Anderson\u2019s<\/strong> comments in this article, they are our adversaries.<\/p>\n

Consumer Groups and ISA Continue Demands to Ban Commissions<\/a><\/p>\n

As for me, I\u2019m ready to roll up my sleeves to become part of the solution. Anyone who wants to contribute constructively<\/u><\/em> is welcome to reach out as I certainly don\u2019t have all the answers.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Peter Stathis is National Insurance Specialist at Insignia Financial. (The views expressed are Peter’s own and not that of his employer.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Back to Adviser Focus Main Page…\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-time industry contributor, Peter Stathis, stands up in support of the value of advised life insurance in this honest and challenging reflection on the state of the retail life insurance advice sector – and in doing so, sends some pointed messages to some of his peers\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6868,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adviserfocus","category-compliance-regulation","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63770","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=63770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}