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AMP has restated the crucial role of financial planning, with the managing director of AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP), Craig Meller, telling a Sydney conference that while there was a retirement incomes shortfall and a continuing problem with underinsurance, only one in six Australians were seeing a financial planner.
Addressing the UBS Financial Services conference, Meller pointed to AMP’s strategy initiatives and the fact that the number of the company’s financial planners was growing faster than the market in circumstances where, in 2009, AMPFP and Hillross planner numbers had increased by 5 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
He said that, as well, the average age and turnover of an AMP financial planner was significantly below the market average.
Meller said that 51 per cent of financial planners had been with AMP for 10 or more years and that a financial planner’s value to AMP increased the planners’ value — increasing four-fold in five years and doubling in the next five years.
He claimed that AMP planners were also more productive, with the data for 2009 showing that AMPFP investment sales per adviser were $5.9 million, while for Hillross advisers the investment sales per adviser were $7.7 million.
Meller said this compared to a market median of $4.3 million.
