AMP adviser reveals torturous BOLR process

Speaking anonymously to ifa, the AMP adviser explained how they lodged a BOLR application in January this year after purchasing a client book from AMP five years ago.

“You were just given a spreadsheet and that was that. I did not receive all the clients for 18 months. I had to fight to get what I paid for,” the adviser said.

After years of difficulty with the group, which involved fighting with AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP) to receive full details of the clients acquired and to correct errors on their files, the adviser’s health started to decline.

The adviser lodged their BOLR application in January this year.

“AMPFP said they did not receive the request,” the adviser told ifa.

“I had to send in the BOLR request again in February. The BOLR request for me was due to ill health caused by AMPFP. I supplied letters from a doctor and a psychologist. My doctor requested it to be actioned by April."

The AMPFP BOLR team contacted the adviser in March detailing what had to done to successfully sell the business back to AMP.

“In essence you have to go through your entire book and make sure all of the addresses, telephone numbers and account numbers are all correct on all of AMP's systems or you will not be paid BOLR. I had 657 entries. Most were incorrect when I received the clients,” the adviser said.

“You also have to go through all of your fee for service clients and make sure your FDSs have a minimum of six to nine months validity so AMPFP does not have to complete any work for nine months.

“You have to have one to two years on your service agreements validity minimum so AMPFP does not have to complete any work for up to two years.

“You have to enter all of the fee arrangements into their computer system manually, so AMPFP does not have to complete any work for 12 months.”

The adviser said that unless all of these demands were met, AMP would not pay.

“The system changed in June so you now have to re-enter all the information into the new system manually (no system with AMP ever talks to another system), so AMPFP does not have to complete any work for 12 months. Otherwise you will not be paid BOLR,” the adviser said.

“You need to provide details of all the client fee groups and then alter all of them manually to AMPFP terminology and services and then manually change all of the above [in the] system again, or you will not be paid BOLR.”

Finally, AMP conducts an audit on the adviser’s business. If the auditors give a pass mark of under 85 per cent on 100 files, “you will not be paid BOLR”.

“AMPFP does not want to pay,” the adviser explained. “They have delayed my health release and kept placing additional obstacles in my way so I could go past 9 August, when they changed the BOLR arrangements and reduced revenue from 4x to 2.5x."

Two weeks ago the adviser was informed that AMPFP had not approved their request so they are now under the new terms.

The adviser claims AMPFP sent the authorisation request to another company, AMP Life (now owned by Resolution Life), to follow up with a doctor’s report in July.

The adviser asked AMP Life how they managed to receive a request that was sent to a different company.

“The claims manager, who I have dealt with for some of my clients’ claims, said he did not know and asked the same question. He was told to follow it up and then was taken off the case. He had three other advisers asking about the privacy concerns and legality of the request, as Resolution Life is a different company.”

More to come.