Risk advice not appealing to graduates

In a statement issued by Synchron, Mr Trapnell said the industry needs to do more to communicate the importance of risk advice to younger people who are interested in financial services.

“Individuals coming out of university appear to be gravitating towards financial planning and investments and not considering risk,” Mr Trapnell said.

“Risk specialists play a very important role in protecting the lifestyles of their clients and I think as an industry, we have largely failed to communicate that,” he said.

Mr Trapnell said he also recognised Synchron’s adviser force was ageing and realised the company needed to attract younger advisers.

“We made a decision to make Synchron an attractive home for young advisers, a place where they could learn from the incredible experience of our more senior advisers,” Mr Trapnell said.

“As a result, the average age of Synchron advisers has reduced from 59 in 2006 to 48 today.”

“We have been able to achieve that reduction, not by losing our more experienced reps, but by encouraging younger people into the Synchron family,” he said.

Mr Trapnell also said he is supportive of “all initiatives offered by associations and institutions” created to encourage more people to specialise in risk advice.

“We offer our advisers access to numerous mentoring workshops as well as our NextGen conference, which is tailored directly to the young risk advisers,” Mr Trapnell said.