The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) today launched a comprehensive Life Insurance Advice guide to support FPA members in delivering high quality life-risk advice to clients.
With input from FPA members, the guide has been developed to provide practical guidance on how to apply the FPA Code of Professional Practice to life-risk advice.
Mark Rantall, CEO of the FPA, said that the guide incorporated elements of the ASIC ‘Life Insurance Advice Checklist’ and positioned this as best practice principles that should be applied by all FPA members in this area.
“The recent discussions on the life insurance reforms have largely focused on remuneration, with little emphasis on the consumer and the quality of the actual life insurance advice provided to them.
“The quality of advice is the primary objective of all FPA members when dealing with the financial futures of Australians. For this reason, we have produced this guide to help members identify and address common omissions and errors in the provision of advice relating to life insurance.
“A better advice process, well-structured advice, improved client servicing, and a well-defined value proposition will help build public trust and confidence in life insurance advice, and ultimately the profession as a whole,” said Mr Rantall.
The FPA’s Life Insurance Advice guide has ten principles and is divided into eight sections, concluding with a Life Insurance Advice Checklist. The insights in the guide apply whether life-risk advice is given as limited (staged or scaled) or comprehensive advice.
Mr Rantall concluded by highlighting that a well-defined value proposition for life insurance advice was rarely confined to a one-off transaction. By following the principles of the guide, financial planners are well-positioned to support clients over the long-term, as their needs and circumstances change.
“Life insurance is of national importance, and the quality of the advice provided is paramount in ensuring that Australians are appropriately and adequately protected.”
There will be a workshop session at the FPA Professionals Congress in November, to explore the guide in detail with members.
Source: FPA
