Mortgage advisers more stressed that others
It’s official – mortgage advisers are more stressed out than other advisers.
Wednesday, December 13th 2023, 3:11PM 
4 Comments
AIA has repeated its Wellbeing survey of advisers it first did in 2021. Overall, the mental health risk of advisers was 6.6% lower than in 2021.
A publication from the Mental Health Foundation in 2022, cited data from Statistics NZ showing one in five workers in New Zealand reported being stressed by work ‘always or often’.
“This suggests that the number of financial advisers experiencing stress most of the time at work, is two times higher than the average worker in New Zealand.”
What is more worrying is that AIA’s Wellbeing report said home loans advisers were worse off than investment and insurance advisers on most measures, including work-family balance, wellbeing, stress, stressful issues, impact of stress, alcohol use, mental health risk,
Psychological capital, self-development and adaptive performance.
AIA head of IFA and group distribution, Anna Schubert said issues like the cost-of-living crisis, refinancing loans at much higher rates, and floods all add pressure to an adviser’s job.
Also there is a lot of emotion from customers when it comes to buying a house which the advisers have to manage.
Added to that there is a lack of work/life balance. “If a deal is on the go you have to do it.”
A mortgage adviser, Sue, commented on a webinar that “there isn’t a part of our role that isn’t time bound or pressured.”
Everything a mortgage adviser does is deadline based.
How about other advisers?
Although the overall wellbeing of financial advisers showed signs of improvement since 2021, stress remains a concerning factor.
Interestingly the main cause of stress has moved from government regulation in 2021 (as advisers prepared for the new licencing regime) to compliance.
Regulation was the highest cause of stress for advisers in 2021 at 61%. However, this year the main pressure point for advisers was compliance, with 50% rating it as ‘highly’ or ‘very highly’ stressful.
“Compared to previous research, we’re noticing a real sense of anxiety which has shifted away from the unknown and towards the fear of making a mistake. This comes as regulation, compliance, and auditing remains front of mind for advisers,” AIA chief partnership distribution officer Sharron Botica says.
While there has been improvement since 2021, the impact of stress on advisers’ health and wellbeing remains a concern. The biggest impact was experiencing sleep issues (41%), followed by the risk of taking stress leave (19%), seeking medical support (17%), and using alcohol to manage stress (15%).
Human Performance Researcher, Adam Fraser, who led the study says using alcohol to manage stress does not work.
“Alcohol does not help anything. It has no positive effect at all.”
Advisers coping well are managing their stress by turning to others for support, including product manufacturers (58.0%), industry peers (57.9%), as well as groups and FAPs (53.1%).
Others are tackling stress by adopting good wellbeing habits, such as improving their ability to draw boundaries around work-from-home (increased by 7%), and showing more consideration to self-development in their role (increased by 4%).
Fraser was surprised that product providers rated so highly in providing support to advisers as in Australia the result was much lower at 28%.
Schubert, described the result as “co-parenting.” Everyone had to come together and get behind advisers as they went through regulatory changes, she says.
Fraser noted that advisers have an incredibly varied load of work tasks. Emails, administration and phone calls account for nearly 40% of the workload.
“One of the sad things is that advice is only 12% of your time.”
Yet giving advice is what energises advisers.
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Comments from our readers
Mortgage advisers want to see some quick action taken by this new Government in terms of repealing some of the many boxes that we are now being forced to tick. Advisers just want to get back to their job of providing seasoned advice to their clients around the home buying process without worrying about whether we need to take time away from our businesses just to keep someone gainfully employed at a Government Department in Wellington. Much of the regulatory changes introduced to the industry over the past 2 years seem to have more to do with box ticking than achieving any benefit whatsoever to consumers. Regulation appears to have benefited the Wellington bureaucrats and education and compliance businesses a lot more than it has the actual consumer.
FSLAA was a complete overreaction from the previous lawmakers and regulators. There are only a handful of complaints made annually against mortgage advisers and most relate to lender clawback of adviser commissions. Thanks to FSLAA some very experienced operators elected to exit the industry early so the consumer has clearly been disadvantaged. Advisers know full well the roadblocks that have being put in front of consumers wishing to access financial advice and the many hoops we as advisers must go through now when providing it to our clients. How is this achieving "good customer outcomes" that the FMA say they are focused on?
Thankfully we have new Ministry of Regulation being formed soon with David Seymour as the Minister in charge. Changes will be coming to the financial services industry. Bank on it.
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does this mean more regulations to come, more stress for advisers, and even lesser than 12% of advisers' time giving advice to clients?
i won't hold my breath for this so call "consultation". already stated "seven fair outcomes ... should be working towards". doesn't that tell us that it's all been decided?