Planner reputations still in decline

It may have been more than a year since the Industry Super Network (ISN) toned down its television advertising impacting financial planners, but they continue to suffer a problem with their reputations, according to the latest data collected by Roy Morgan Research.

The latest Roy Morgan Image of the Professions Survey shows that financial planners' reputations have actually taken a minor hit in the past 12 months to be one per cent down on their standing in 2012, while newspaper journalists' standings actually went up 7 per cent and car salesmen, while relative cellar dwellers, also improved their reputations.

The survey data also revealed that while many accountants provide financial advice, this has not served to undermine their reputations, which have remained relatively steady for most of the past five years.

Asked to explain the reputational problems being encountered by planners, Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris said it was difficult to pin-point any easy answers for the industry.

He agreed, however, that the ISN's long-running ‘Compare the Pair' television advertising campaign had had an impact, together with the negative news reports around the collapse of Storm Financial and Trio/Astarra.

Morris said this decline in reputation had occurred despite the efforts of the financial planning profession to improve its image over recent years.

He said the survey data showed the public's rating of financial planners had continued to decline in 2013.

"In 2011 only 28 per cent of the population considered financial planners to be rated ‘very high' or ‘high' for ‘Ethics and Honesty'. This fell to 26 per cent in 2012, and in the latest survey conducted in April 2013 it has fallen further to only 25 per cent," Morris said.

He said this meant planners were now ranked 17th among the survey's list of professions — and well below accountants who were ranked 11th.

Morris claimed that at a time when the major financial institutions were all building up their planner numbers, more attention would need to be given to improving the image of the profession if the public was to rely on them more.

For the record, nurses emerged as the most trusted profession, rating 90 per cent, followed by doctors rating 88 per cent and pharmacists rating 84 per cent.

The bottom five slots on the survey were filled by insurance brokers (13 per cent), State Members of Parliament (13 per cent), real estate agents (12 per cent), advertising people (9 per cent) and car salesmen (4 per cent).