As part of its Risk Academy, Australian life insurer TAL has announced it will run its Ethics Month series again in May 2024.
Running for the first time last year, the course had over 1,700 enrolments, awarded over 4,000 CPD hours, and received overall positive feedback from its participants.
This year’s Ethics Month series will consist of four webinars held weekly over the month of May, awarding participants one continuing professional development (CPD) hour per session and totalling four CPD hours upon completion.
The weekly sessions will be presented by the TAL technical team, which will dissect key sections of the Code of Ethics, analyse real-world scenarios, and give advisers tools to navigate ethical dilemmas.
TAL national sales development manager Jason Bamford said TAL is pleased to be running the series again and continue its efforts to promote professionalism in the advice industry.
“TAL’s Ethics Month is designed to support advisers in their compliance with the Code of Ethics and provide a practical understanding of this important topic,” Bamford said.
“Ethical decision making lies at the heart of responsible financial advice practice. In today’s complex and rapidly evolving advice landscape, advisers are regularly faced with complex ethical dilemmas.
“Our aim with Ethics Month is to empower advisers with the knowledge and resources to confidently navigate these challenges.”
Ensuring advisers are able to fully grasp the content, Bamford said the course will discuss real-world and practical scenarios to envision how they can put the teachings into practice.
“This series will offer insights and tools which can be applied in practical, real-world scenarios, giving all participants the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, decision making, and communication skills to better serve their clients,” he said.
‘Evolved’ 2024 program
In February, TAL unveiled its 2024 Risk Academy Program, and with this the “working with TAL” stream, covering elements from product design and pricing to applications and claims.
Speaking at the time, TAL’s general manager of retail sales and new business, Beau Riley, said the new program was developed to meet the needs of advisers at every stage of their career.
“Our 2024 program offers tailored courses, ensuring that no matter where advisers are in their career, they have access to education and knowledge that can elevate their expertise,” Riley said.
“Our course streams have evolved this year to reflect the changing role of financial advice, and all courses will continue to be modified to meet evolving adviser needs as the year progresses.”
One may say that TAL is to be, on one hand, commended for offering this apparent support to advisers. On the other hand I would genuinely ask where were they when advisers REALLY needed support. I’m talking about when they sat idly by and quietly watched and allowed commissions to plummet to unsustainable remunerative levels. Where were they as the ill-informed govt minister, buoyed by special interest groups cut the responsibility periods for risk business to only 1 year? Their life company adviser advocacy was NOWHERE to be seen then, was it!
The life companies thought they would be the big beneficiaries of this and thus sat silently as it came to pass. They learned relatively quickly how wrong they were – look at the state of the ‘profession’ now. Risk writing in Australia now is effectively a very, very pale shadow of its former self, as is the relationships between moist advisers and their BDMs, being much more transactional now and little loyalty as in the old days.
Life companies should have been supporting advisers in a REAL way, not this wet-blanket style of virtue signalling of courses on “ethics” in business. They talk as if you can instill ethics in an adviser that is not already ethical. I don’t know how the life company execs can look at themselves in the mirror these days. Deplorable. Couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!