During a panel discussion at AIST’s Insurance Ideas Exchange in Sydney yesterday, ANZ Wealth’s head of life insurance, Gerard Kerr, said while the industry has a “reasonable outlook” for where it is heading with the Life Insurance Framework, recent political changes have meant the industry’s future is now less clear.
“This situation we are in, this no man’s land, is in no one’s best interests,” Mr Kerr said.
“It is very tough to get clarity on what that sector is going to look like over the next couple of years because there is a lot of political uncertainty.”
“I just wish we had greater clarity so we can get on with it,” he said.
Mr Kerr added he believes the framework will still “come in” and the life insurance sector has a “reasonable desire” to change.
“I do think the process that we have gone through over the last six or seven months has sort of made the insurers and advice industry look at what it should be doing and try to think: well actually, yes, there have been things not working as well as we wanted [and as a result we] need to change, he said.
During a presentation held prior to the panel discussion, Mr Kerr displayed the breakdown, as of June 2015, of the channels through which ANZ’s retail life insurance is sold.
The breakdown showed that 46.9 per cent of products are sold by IFAs, while only 12.4 per cent are sold through the bank advice channel.
This was compared to 25.3 per cent which was sold through the group insurance channel.
One thing is certain Gerrard with calls like this will see your ANZ share of the 46.9% IFA sales drop after 1/1/16…
I wonder if Gerard Kerr can tell how much is sold through ANZ’s direct marketing sold under General Advice, with products that don’t match the quality of ANZ’s OnePath policies, and which IFAs are obliged to offer Personal Advice
Surprise, surprise! An FSC member wants to rush through LIF as it stands, of course, to create “clarity”. Would that be clarity that a 3 year claw back will not be reduced or that the bank advice/direct channels might not get the (unwarranted) free kick (and 50 metre penalty!)
Pretty easy, really, don’t wait for legislation, implement 80:20 hybrid or nil commission models for choice, life companies monitor and ban churners, licensees step up and ban churners from being authorised!
I suspect tyhose figures are not much different across the industry. yet the area most trageted for (Detrimental) change appears to be the IFA. if ts were a government looking at tax reform you wouldnt see them kicking the 46% provider of their total revenue….would you?