Tele-interviewing to simplify life insurance advice: TAL

Tele-interviewing services offered by life firms can improve the process around life insurance advice by removing non-disclosure concerns, says TAL. 

Tele-interviewing to simplify life insurance advice: TAL

elaina

Last Updated: 14 September 2015 Published: 14 September 2015

Speaking to AdviserInnovation's sister title ifa, TAL general manager of distribution Niall McConville said tele-interviewing presents advisers with a number of benefits.

"I think it removes the duty of disclosure from the adviser and [puts it] completely on the life office and the client," Mr McConville said.

The adviser then does not have to worry about having a client coming back to them, after having a claim rejected due to non-disclosure, saying they had told them everything, he said.

"We record everything whereas not all advisers record everything. We can then send the adviser a copy of that recording and keep them in the loop," he said.

Mr McConville said by removing the duty of disclosure away from the adviser through tele-interviewing, professional indemnity (PI) insurers may see the chances of having a claim put in against an insured adviser will go down.

"A client won't be able to claim on an adviser's PI because the adviser wasn't a part of the process."

"[Then possibly], later down the line, PI insurers may offer cheaper PI insurance [to adviser] if they use tele-interviewing. Logic says that is a possibility," he said.

Mr McConville acknowledged however that some advisers may be against the idea of using the tele-underwriting service due to clients in the past having bad experiences with it.

"The reality is, a couple of years ago when tele-interviewing started to get a bit of traction in the market place [and] the life offices didn't do it all that well and some of their clients might not of had the best experience," he said.

"But we have gotten a lot better at it now and the experience for clients is a lot better and advisers are starting to trust life insurance companies more to do their tele-interviewing."