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"Sell as much level term insurance as you can." That's the advice Fidelity Life chief executive Milton Jennings gives this week as we look at the effect life insurance taxation will have on premiums next year.

AMP refuses to give us direct answers on whether it will follow its Australian counterparts' movements in severing commissions and we look at the problems around calling a financial adviser "independent".

Our opinion piece explores the need for variation with insurance and looks at how 2010 could be the catalyst for innovation with all the regulatory changes to be made.

Insurance News

Sell as much level term insurance as you can before tax changes
Fidelity Life says insurance brokers should be trying to sell as much level term insurance to people as possible between now and June, as life insurance taxation will soon increase premiums. More

AMP refuses to front up on commissions in NZ
AMP NZ is being coy as to whether it will follow its Australian counterpart in severing commissions for financial planners and advisers, saying the Ripoll report has a "unique context." More

Independent definition a problem for advisers
Calling financial advisers "independent" is problematic and quite likely impossible as no adviser can confidently keep themselves informed of every possible product available in New Zealand's market. More

Russell Hutchinson

Opinion: Insurance needs variation
The surprising thing about the divergence between Sovereign's upfront life insurance offer and Fidelity's spread offer is not that they are moving in different directions - it's that for so long some sort of unspoken consensus has existed about the life insurance industry. More