Over 70% of premiums are external: ClearView

Mr Swanson wrote in an opinion piece on sister publication ifa that only $64 million worth of premiums written by ClearView’s aligned advisers is in its LifeSolutions product.

He said this is in comparison to the $224 million in premiums under advice across Matrix Planning Solutions and ClearView Financial.

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“In other words, over 70 per cent of policies written by ClearView’s aligned advisers are placed with external third party insurers,” Mr Swanson said.

The statement was in response to a comment in an ifa story, asking Mr Swanson how much uptake of outside-of-house product comes from ClearView’s open approved product list (APL).

Mr Swanson also said that ClearView-aligned advisers represent only 28 per cent of new life sales in the half-year to 31 December 2016, with the bulk of those sales coming from the IFA channel.

Further, he noted that advisers today are better-educated and more professional than ever, but can’t utilise their experience in choosing the best life insurance product for clients due to the restrictive nature of some dealer group APLs.

“It seems counterintuitive to ask advisers to be degree qualified, meet continuous professional development obligations and professional standards but dictate to them the products they can and can’t recommend,” Mr Swanson said.

“Open APLs are critical if the industry is to better manage the conflicts inherent in the vertically integrated model, remove the product-flogging stigma, gain the trust of consumers and establish itself as a bona fide profession.”