ClearView highlights importance of life insurance advice

ASX-listed financial services firm, ClearView has highlighted the importance and benefits of life insurance advice, amidst Treasury’s Quality of Advice Review.

ClearView, which collected its customer reviews and put them into a booklet “Claims at ClearView: What our customers say about us”, has said that the recent data from the Australian Prudential and Regulation Authority (APRA) showed that taking out cover through an adviser often resulted in more competitive features and benefits, higher sums insured, faster payment times and fewer disputes.

On the other hand, it was up to financial services community to educate customers, policy makers and regulators about the added value of advice, ClearView’s managing director, Simon Swanson, said.

“That looks like helping a client in desperate need complete and lodge a claim application, arrange doctors’ appointments, liaise with insurers and, ultimately, telling them that their claim has been accepted,” he said.

The firm also said that storytelling was critical to the future of financial advice as well as sharing the customers’ experience getting life insurance, claiming on their policy and after suffering an accident, injury or illness.

“Life insurance advice and the impact of the Life Insurance Framework are key focus areas of the Quality of Advice Review, which creates a unique opportunity for life insurers and financial advisers to get their clients to advocate for them,” Mr Swanson said. “Customer reviews are extremely powerful and if we don’t talk about our successes then noone else will,” Swanson added.

“Customer reviews are extremely powerful and if we don’t talk about our successes then noone else will.”

The release of “Claims at ClearView: What our customers say about us”, followed the firm’s submission to the Quality of Advice Review, which petitioned for no further adverse changes to life insurance commission caps in order to provide much needed stability and confidence