We’d like to comment on a story on Good returns in which Asteron’s Sean Carroll reportedly had this to say;
“The commission war over the past few months had done nothing for the industry, and as an actuary, he said he knew "exactly" how it is costing his competitors. Change needs to be customer-driven, and Carroll said he does not think the commission rates being offered are sustainable.”
We entirely agree with this comment, particularly about change needing to be customer driven.
Our view is this…
Selling more life insurance is not about hiking up commissions to levels well over 200% to incentivise brokers to sell more and more of your products. In fact, it’s not about ‘sales-push’ at all.
Selling more life insurance is about making products more relevant, more accessible (read internet) and more affordable.
It’s about designing policies that people want to buy, not incentivising sales people to do the hard sell.