The 10 major life/risk insurers paid advisers in the order of $6 billion in commissions over the past five years, the Royal Commission has been told.
In her preamble to the sixth round of hearings of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, Counsel Assisting, Rowen Orr QC, detailed the amount paid in commissions be each of the insurers.
In doing so, she pointed out the manner in which life/risk commissions had been largely excluded from the restrictions imposed by the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) regime.
She detailed that Zurich had paid $113 million, AMP Limited had paid $380 million, MetLife had paid $340 million, the Commonwealth Bank had paid $460 million, Suncorp had paid $590 million, Westpac had paid $640 million (plus $112 million in grandfathered commissions), AIA Australia had paid $690 million, OnePath had paid $830 million, TAL had paid $840 million and MLC had $1.16 billion.
Orr said that equated to $6 billion in a five year period.
She later went on to outline the impact of the Life Insurance Framework (LIF) on commissions.
