AFA launches risk insurance course

The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) has launched a year-long training program to try to attract younger risk advisers to the profession.

AFA president Michael Murphy said the Practice Builder Program was aimed at training young advisers who can relate at 25 to 40-year-old Australians, which surveys suggest is chronically underinsured.

The program will be taught by the Anthony Morris Group, a South African-based training organisation, and will start in 2006.

Speaking at the AFA national conference in Melbourne, Murphy said the risk insurance industry needed a new generation of advisers to reduce the average age of AFA members from about 55 years currently.

“Our industry needs young advisers who can talk with 25 to 40-year-olds and walk through life with them,” he said.

The Practice Builder Program will comprise 24 hours of face-to-face instruction in workshops spread over the year, backed up by internet-based training.

Murphy said it is intended to equip advisers with the skills to be able to put “personal contact into client/adviser relationships for the mutual advantage of both”.

He said the advent of the Financial Services Reform Act had placed a greater emphasis on corporate and advisory governance at the expense of people skills.

“The AFA believes there is a strong need to reinforce people skills in the relationship with clients”, he said, especially considering the “poor savings record and the catastrophic underinsurance problem in Australia”.