Financial planning and advice will be a key component of the value proposition of industry, corporate and government superannuation funds, according to a panel of speakers at the AIST Superannuation Administration Symposium in Melbourne last Thursday.
The $36-billion UniSuper fund was represented by Chris Davies, executive manager of member and employer solutions, and the $11-billion VicSuper fund was represented by Tarnia Puchlenko, executive manager of marketing and communications. 
According to Davies (pictured right), who previously worked at BT Financial Group and Colonial First State before reuniting with former Colonial First State chief executives Chris Cuffe and John Pearce at UniSuper in 2009, demand for financial advice, particularly from UniSuper members nearing retirement, has never been stronger.
Since late 2009, when the fund launched its comprehensive advice offering, “thousands” of members have received advice with “hundreds” more opting for the ongoing variety, he said.
UniSuper members were commonly approached by external advisers because they have larger than average account balances on retirement, at approximately $600,000, according to Davies. However, the fund’s 22 inhouse advisers had the jump on its rivals because of its intimate knowledge and understanding of members’ unique situations.
“UniSuper is not like other funds. The majority of members coming through and retiring now are in a defined benefit arrangement, so many have a right to an indexed lifetime pension, which an external adviser may not fully understand the complexity of,” he said.
“Furthermore, a lot of our members don’t have a defined, fixed retirement date. They tend to transition to retirement. For example, academics may begin winding down their teaching and start writing or researching or performing other university jobs from age 60 to 70 before ultimately deciding to stop work.”
“There will always be advisers who see our members as strong client prospects and that drives healthy competition, but since we launched our advice service, we’ve observed that members who seek advice on retirement keep an increasingly [larger amount of] money in UniSuper than those who don’t get advice.”
UniSuper has approximately 400,000 members, 80,000 of whom are in a defined benefit arrangement. The fund offers three core options: free general advice; phone-based personal but limited advice, which costs around $375; and comprehensive advice, which costs around $2800. Members pay an additional flat fee for an annual review.
The fund has ambitious plans to add eight new advisers by year end, pushing its network to 30 in six locations: Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
