The life insurance industry has a vital role to play in Australia’s safety net to help address some of the nation’s biggest economic and health challenges, according to Acenda chief executive and managing director Kent Griffin.
Speaking at the Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Griffin said the industry has “never had a better opportunity to work together” and build a “new vision” of life insurance in Australia.
“Indeed, Australia needs us more than ever. A strong life insurance sector can play a vital role in Australia’s safety net and address the nation’s twin policy challenges of an ageing population and soaring healthcare costs,” he said.
The CEO added that advisers have a crucial role to play in life insurance, saying they are “uniquely placed to support clients in navigating insurance options that align with their situation”.
“We know there is a large, unmet need for advice and guidance on life insurance. CALI’s latest sentiment tracker shows 33 per cent of working Australians sought or considered financial advice in the past three months but only 7 per cent actually received it,” Griffin said.
“There is universal agreement across the industry and government about the importance of improving access to quality, affordable advice.”
On the back of the recently announced second tranche of Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms, he also urged whichever party forms government to “ensure advice reform remains a priority”.
“We must continue to work together as an industry to embrace a comprehensive agenda of reform,” Griffin said.
“The latest tranche of the government’s financial advice reforms, released in March, will help to simplify the advice framework, ensuring more Australians can access advice in a format that is easy to understand and tailored to their individual needs.
“This is a positive step; however, more can be done. The government has also committed to developing the remaining pieces to modernise the best interest duty and create a new class of adviser, and that these, combined with the draft legislation released, will be introduced into Parliament as a single package. With this commitment from government, we are making progress.”
Along with optimism on the reform front, he argued there are positive signs for financial advice as the market begins to stabilise “after a tough few years”.
“The number of advisers writing life insurance also continues to increase. One in two people who received advice about life insurance in the past three months got it from a financial adviser,” Griffin said.
Kent, really?
This is the same rhetoric as government and corporates prattling on about builders needing to build more “affordable housing” at a time when builders are going belly-up, left, right and centre for multiple reasons.
Insurance advice is only marginally viable for a home office based adviser. Which industry or profession can cop an industry and regulatory enforced 40% pay cut and still remain viable ? It’s simple Economics 101. If it’s no longer viable, few if any will do it. We generally have to write what amounts to a 40 page SoA for simple Life / TPD / Trauma / Income Protection, to essentially protect us from a risk and compliance perspective. The clients don’t read it. They don’t understand it. They don’t even get past page 4 before their eye’s glaze over. There is a reason why risk advice is in trouble…..it’s called LIF.
Too much compliance risk, too many hurdles to writing new business and generally not worth the effort for the money. Kent, your company consists of MLC and AMP, both of which were involved in driving advisers out of the insurance advice market. Your words mean nothing.
Sounds like Kent has never sold life insurance and does not understand that many advisers no longer bother because there has not been enough profit since the advent of LIF…