{"id":78583,"date":"2025-08-19T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T00:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=78583"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T05:01:33","slug":"insurers-urged-to-improve-direct-sale-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2025\/08\/19\/insurers-urged-to-improve-direct-sale-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers Urged to Improve Direct Sale Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ASIC is calling on life insurance companies to step up their direct product, sales, and complaints handling practices.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/download.asic.gov.au\/media\/p2ic4nwr\/dear-ceo-letter-improving-the-direct-sale-of-life-insurance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">letter to industry<\/a>, ASIC Commissioner <strong>Alan Kirkland<\/strong> points to growing concerns about increases in rates of disputes involving direct life insurance sales.<\/p>\n<p>He lists four key recommendations to improve compliance and benefit consumers:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66182\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66182\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66182\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/06\/Alan-Kirkland-headshot-2018-1-e1686632051238.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/06\/Alan-Kirkland-headshot-2018-1-e1686632051238.jpg 352w, https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/06\/Alan-Kirkland-headshot-2018-1-e1686632051238-250x300.jpg 250w, https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2023\/06\/Alan-Kirkland-headshot-2018-1-e1686632051238-350x420.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66182\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alan Kirkland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Strengthen product design<\/li>\n<li>Improve sales and pay practices<\/li>\n<li>Apply consistent quality standards to retention calls and streamline cancellation processes<\/li>\n<li>Treat complaints as valuable business intelligence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;While life insurance can provide valuable benefits to consumers, it is typically a complex and costly product, so it is important that sales practices are designed with customers\u2019 needs in mind,&#8221; said Kirkland.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is particularly important for life companies that are considering expanding direct sales of life insurance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In acknowledging some companies have made improvements, he states there are still notable deficiencies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Continued prominence of sales volume and targets can incentivise high\u00a0pressure or misleading sales tactics contrary to the interests of consumers,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/download.asic.gov.au\/media\/p2ic4nwr\/dear-ceo-letter-improving-the-direct-sale-of-life-insurance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> to read the full letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ASIC is calling on life insurance companies to step up their direct product, sales, and complaints handling practices. In a letter to industry, ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland points to growing concerns about increases in rates of disputes involving direct life insurance sales. He lists four key recommendations to improve compliance and benefit consumers: Strengthen product [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":78587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-compliance-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78583","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}