When the adviser is the insurance

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Des Morgan is well aware he’ll “take some flak” from the advice sector, but he insists his no-advice online life insurance model is filling a need – particularly for younger, internet savvy consumers.

Wednesday, September 28th 2011, 9:16PM 13 Comments

by Benn Bathgate

Morgan launched the Insurance4Me website back in April and is now offering customers who switch their policy Pinnacle Life cover at a 20% reduction on their current premiums.

"This is for a specific market, people who don't want advice and aren't going to go to a broker anyway, so I'm working on the basis that some insurance is better than none," he said.

"Some people don't want to see an adviser."

Morgan also said his approach to his target market meant he was not "trying to put them [advisers] down in any way, shape or form."

"If I want to attack I could pull out the commission thing and all that," he said.

TNP managing director Jeff Page said that while he preferred to see clients seek quality advisers, he was well aware of the growth in online insurance, a trend he predicted would continue.

"I think the number of people personally that want to go online and purchase will increase as time goes by, absolutely, but I still think there is always going to be a place for a good quality adviser that has a value proposition, and the value proposition is being able to give somebody completely unbiased advice."

Where Page and Morgan are in complete agreement is over the growing importance of the internet.

"You've got 80% of the population searching before they make a major decision, they go online to research or to compare, and if you are an adviser in the market place and you don't have a web presence, you're going to be at a disadvantage," he said.

Partners Life managing director Naomi Ballantyne also supported increased use of the internet for tasks such as filling in application forms and providing medical notes, but again backed the role of the adviser.

"You run the risk of the blind leading the blind, the client doesn't know what they don't know."

She was also wary of attempts to capture customers simply by offering low initial prices.

"Brokers have to produce illustrations that have 10-year projections, so you can get a feel for if the company are doing funny things with their pricing to make the first year look really good and then you know what, next year you're going to pay 20% more then everyone else in order to make up for it."

Another benefit to securing life cover through an adviser was highlighted by Fidelity Life chief executive Milton Jennings.

"They'll help fight for you when there's a claim, if you don't appeal through an adviser you've got to fight it for yourself, and advisers have very good relationships with the life companies they deal with," he said.

"They know the people within that organisation and they're able to talk to them and they've got a bit of leverage with them as well, so you lose a lot, and how long's your 20% going to last?"

Benn Bathgate is a business reporter for ASSET and Good Returns, email story ideas to benn@goodreturns.co.nz

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