Advisers told to push value proposition

Advisers need to be more confident about their value propositions for life insurance, according to the chief executive of Tower Australia, Jim Minto.

Speaking at the Synchron annual conference in New Zealand, Minto said advisers regularly told him they didn’t know how they were going to interact with clients if they charge a fee for insurance.

“You need to be confident to demonstrate the value of what you do to your customers. One of the downsides of the commissions world has been that there has been something [hidden], and consumerism in the government is going to bring it out to the front of the curtain,” he said.

“That means you just have to believe in what you do and be able to articulate that to the customers, because it is very valuable,” Minto added.

Dealer groups who could add value to advisers’ insurance advice propositions would also help build a more sustainable insurance industry, he said.

“So many archaic back-office processes and poor, delayed, laborious underwriting processes are going to have to modernise,” he said.

The industry would not be able to move to a fee-for-service model if they weren’t able to make the industry more efficient and tax deductible, Minto said.