Genesys reshuffles risk partners

Andrew Creaser

Genesys Wealth Advisers has rationalised its insurance partners, trimming its number of providers from around 10 to four in a bid to simplify its insurance offering for advisers.

The four that have been retained are Aviva, CommInsure, Macquarie and Tower, with a number of insurers failing to make the cut, and former insurance partners BT Financial Group and AMP choosing not to participate in the tender.

According to Genesys head of risk Col Fullagar, who spearheaded the tender process: “What we’re finding is advisers are avoiding writing [insurance] because it’s too hard.”

He explained the reasons for the change as decreasing complexity for advisers rather than increasing profitability, with the economic benefits flowing on as a “by-product of fixing the process”.

“It’s become more and more difficult to get business completed, so the economics for the advisers has become less and less attractive.

“It does have economic benefits for the group; there was certainly better economic benefits to be had, but it would have compromised one of the other nine key issues,” Fullagar said, referring to the list of 10 criteria it applied in selecting the four.

“The push from the advisers, potentially contrary to popular opinion, was ‘fix the process’, it wasn’t ‘let’s get some more profitability out of it’,” he said.

Andrew Creaser, Genesys executive director, said the group had “never managed to get a consistent experience for our advisers across our risk book,” with ease of administration, understanding policy documentation and claims management the core benefits it expects to derive from the change.

Creaser suggested the complexities of insurance products and procedures mean many advisers are often not confident in writing risk business.

He said Genesys is hoping to boost this confidence among its advisers, making the changes “specifically with a view to ensure that advisers could confidently recommend risk insurance”.

“We made a decision to reduce the number of carriers that we had on our list, with a view to working far more closely with them around things like electronic applications, electronic underwriting [and] proactive claims management,” he said.

Creaser explained the decision to cut back on its number of insurance partners was made clear to all its providers before the tender process began, which utilised a selection panel of 12 members comprising seven advisers representing each Australian state and territory along with five Genesys managers.

Both Creaser and Fullagar emphasised that while the reduced number of insurance partners shrinks the number of insurers on Genesys’ approved product list, it does not necessarily stop advisers writing other products.

Advisers who feel a product outside the four key providers better meets client needs can apply for an exception on those grounds.