Advisers want assurances that any regulatory simplification of Statements of Advice won’t undermine advisers’ ability to gain Professional Indemnity insurance, and they also want an industry-wide standardised template, according to survey findings.
Adviser social media and education platform Ensombl released these findings in the ‘What advisors want’ report (picking up on the US spelling of advisers ahead of a planned launch in the US) which relies on responses from its established Australian userbase.
Despite the company’s recent overseas expansion, the inaugural survey focuses on the Australia userbase and presented the top 15 talking points with the Quality of Advice Review reforms being number one.
The government released its response to the review in June, announcing a raft of reforms that would reduce red tape in the industry including simplifying the requirements for SOAs.
In the Ensombl survey, advisers wanted “industry-standardised templates for whatever documents replace SOAs” as well as “assurances that scrapping SOAs won’t undermine the ability to secure PI insurance”.
Additionally, a period of no more regulatory reviews and a level playing field with super funds for compliance and professional standards for giving advice was highlighted, as the government grapples with policy specifics for how funds will be allowed to give more advice.
After QAR, the other top five most-discussed topics were technology, investments, life insurance, and pricing advice.
Technology was divided into a few sub-themes: customer relationship management software, platforms, client engagement software and artificial intelligence services.
“The most common request from advisors is for platform guidance and opinion in relation to the construction of tech stacks, and around the merits of specific providers,” the report said.
“Common advisor pain points include the quality of reporting, costs, integration challenges and poor user experience.”
For investments, 75 per cent of Ensombl users rated investments at least four out of five in terms of importance for their clients, with around half saying they fine-tune their investment strategy at least quarterly.
“Whilst general portfolio construction conversations remain perennial, the volatility and underperformance of many asset classes seen during 2022 have continued, spurring dialogues about how to adjust strategies in these inflationary times,” the report said.
The research found advisers want more peer insight on pricing methodologies and frameworks, along with calculators/tools to help price different steps in the advice process.
Additionally, advisers want guidance on how to communicate fees to clients and on best practices on what services to charge for.
“At a more granular level, advisors are looking for help with frameworks and methodologies to use when constructing their pricing approach and guidance on how to adapt their approach between different client segments,” the report said.
