Affinia launches insurance advice tool

In a statement released by the TAL-aligned practice, Affinia said the Strategic Advice Cashflow Tool will encompass a needs analysis and cash flow calculator.

“The tool facilitates meaningful conversations between advisers and clients so that the service provided is built around high-quality, valuable advice and risk management strategies, not products,” Affinia general manager Craig Parker said.

“This is about moving the conversation with clients away from insurance products and towards fully understanding client needs, and developing strategies and delivering solutions to meet those needs, and then reviewing them regularly.”

Affinia also pointed out that one of the “key callouts” from ASIC’s review of the retail life insurance advice industry was the lack of an industry-accepted definition of ‘strategic life insurance advice’.

“Strategic life insurance advice has a direct correlation to the globally-accepted definition of ‘Risk Management’ as classified by ISO 31000,” the statement from Affinia said.

“This states, ‘Risk management is the coordinated activities to direct and control outcomes with regard to risk. At its most effective, Risk management is fully integrated into the planning and management of an organisation across all levels’," it said.

Mr Parker highlighted that Affinia has developed a risk management framework that “defines and unpacks” what strategic insurance advice is.

“Risk advice practices need to be built on the foundations of providing strategic advice, and our new framework, including the tool, provides the system to do that,” he said.