Advisers call for insurance product innovation

Recently hosting a national adviser roundtable program called ‘Blueprint for the Future’, Zurich found the greatest want from advisers going forward with the industry reforms is innovation around insurance products.

“Improving practice efficiency and exploring new market segments are obvious opportunities for advisers seeking to reshape their participation in the life insurance advice market,” Zurich general manager of retail life and investments Philip Kewin said.

“But the most exciting roundtable outcome from our perspective was the attendees’ thinking on innovation, in terms of both their appetite for new product and service offerings and their creativity around what those offerings might be.”

During the roundtable, advisers created of over 100 ideas for improving the industry with the framework, which Mr Kewin said were all based on “meaningful consumer insights”.

“In conjunction with attendees we identified four areas where innovation could drive the most value: Product solutions, efficiency and business management, customer engagement and retention and value proposition,” Mr Kewin said.

“These will become the primary focus in helping our distribution partners adapt to and capitalise on the LIF changes, and indeed the many other seismic shifts in culture and technology which are impacting how we live, work and communicate."

During the roundtable participants – which Zurich said included some of Australia’s leading risk specialists – were invited to put forward their perspective on the reforms and how they would adapt after 1 January 2016.

Mr Kewin also said feedback from advisers during the roundtable reinforced the findings of recent research conducted by the insurer into adviser preparations for the framework and long-term market disruptions.