Life company support passes muster
Life companies have held the fort when it comes to client services over the past three years, with industry feedback indicating life companies have neither excelled nor gone backwards in any great measure.
The level of satisfaction with life companies from 2011 to 2013 was compared by Plan For Life, which released its annual client service survey for this year covering three groups that use life companies - advisers and paraplanners, dealer licensees and practice management staff.
Plan For Life stated that advisers were generally upbeat about the support services providing by the 11 life companies. It said business development support, product disclosure statement marketing and support and underwriting support had generally improved over the last three years.
Advisers also said that quote software, proposal-straight-through-processing and the overall level of administration and claims servicing had also improved over the past three years.
Licensees also saw business development manager support as being consistent over the past three years, but found that BDM support had improved greatly in the area of executing strategies and consistency of support across the network. They also stated that commission reporting over the last three years had remained consistent but improved in some areas slightly.
This view contrasted to that held by practice management staff, who said that overall support had declined in the last three years. Trends in claim support were mixed and support on quote software declined.
Practice management staff also felt that life company activities designed to grow the industry had fallen away over the past three years - but stated that the transparency of claims procedures had been an area of improvement, as was the ability to access a senior life contact to resolve issues.
Plan For Life conducted this year’s survey during June and July and drew responses from more than 70 dealer groups. It considered 11 life companies considered as part of the survey: AIA Australia, AMP and AMP Elevate, Asteron, BT Financial Group, CommInsure, Macquarie, MLC, OnePath, TAL and Zurich.
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