The Investment and Financial Services Association (IFSA) will shift its focus away from superannuation and financial services reform to consumer awareness of life insurance products and regulation.
As part of its new focus, IFSA has released a framework to increase the awareness of life insurance products and regulation.
The association has released the Headland Statement ‘Securing Australians’ Financial Wellbeing’ yesterday, after 12 months of reviewing the life insurance industry outlook.
The statement provides a framework to increase the financial security of families, individuals and small business owners and outlines key objectives to increase awareness of, support for and simplification of life insurance products and regulation.
Commenting on the framework, IFSA chief executive Richard Gilbert said: “Protecting wealth is as important as building wealth and we’re pointing the finger at ourselves first as an industry for not consistently communicating this message effectively enough.
“IFSA believes that industry, government and regulators should collectively devote more attention toward making it easier for Australians to protect their income, their families and their lifestyle.”
Certainly, we believe that government and regulators have a key educative role to play, Gilbert said.
Following the release of this Headland Statement, IFSA will undertake an awareness campaign over the next three years that will highlight the importance of, and in particular, the affordability of adequate life insurance cover and other living benefits.
“Two of the most interesting findings were that for an average 31-year-old male, married with two children and earning $75,000 per year, three quarters of a million dollars of death cover and $4,700 per month of income protection – together- costs an average of $2.83 per day”, Gilbert said.
A key feature of the Headland Statement is a proposed policy review of the life insurance industry in order to examine the public good nature of life insurance and income protection products and to examine the underlying social and economic consequences of the underinsurance problem in Australia.
The proposed review would also look at new ways to encourage takeup of life insurance and income protection products and to reduce impediments to takeup.
