Insurance survey reveals shift from return to risk

Almost half of adviser income from risk advice in the last 12 months came from new clients, with one in five advisers writing more than $100,000 in new risk premiums, according to CoreData research.

The CoreData Risk Study 2010 was conducted between 6 September and 1 October this year and covered all the major life insurance companies, including AIA Australia, AMP, Asteron, Aviva, AXA, BT, CommInsure, ING, Macquarie, MLC, Tower, Westpac and Zurich. The findings revealed a shift in client focus from return to risk, CoreData stated.

The survey revealed that in 2010, 48.7 per cent of advisers’ total risk income came from new clients, while 21.2 per cent of advisers wrote more than $100,000 in new risk premiums and 12.7 per cent wrote between $75,000 and $100,000. Some 48.8 per cent of advisers expected to increase the amount of insurance written with their main risk provider over the next 12 months, 20.8 per cent expected this increase to be by more than 20 per cent, and 40.9 per cent predicted business levels would remain the same.

In terms of online applications, the research found that usage remained widely dispersed, which CoreData stated reflected restrictions preventing advisers from writing products outside of the service provider. ING, AIA and Aviva were the most commonly used online applications in 2010, while COIN and Xplan Risk Researcher IQM+ were the most popular risk research software providers, used by 22.9 per cent and 15.4 per cent respectively.