The report on New Zealand Mental Health is a disappointing read. Yes, we need more funding in mental health, up there with no **** Sherlock. But the fundamental approach by those with the power to effect real change continues to ignore the suggestions from grassroots New Zealand on what is needed.

Mike King, by his own admission, is an addict and a bully, and after realising this is doing his piece to make a difference and address those things that cause many of the issues the report has determined they don't have a solution for. Mike has had some awesomely effective ideas, yet has been completely shut out of the process.

On top of that, we have a bunch of non-clinicians making suggestions on what we should be doing; I get the medical knots that creates. However, most of our most significant medical breakthroughs have come from people who are not medical people.

Hydrocephalus, a dangerous brain condition where the fluid pressure in the brain is not regulated properly. The device used by surgeons today was originally conceived by a father who wanted to help his daughter who had the condition. He designed the device that a surgeon used to help her.

Why is it so hard for the people making decisions on mental health to take into account and take action on the ideas from those who have experienced it first hand?

If you canvas those that have suffered from, been subject to, and saved from mental health and suicide, they will tell you, quite clearly, and with some consistency, they need more support and access to the right sort of support.

Yet, we seem to have a level of bias against mental health with those working in the area. Maybe it is the denial of their own vulnerability, or their own underlying condition, or that they have never had it impact them or their family so really have no idea of the reality (lucky for them).

We get a little hot under the collar on this subject, because it causes so much unnecessary harm and on the most part the early intervention can have a profound impact and avoid much of what follows.

When you field calls from distressed clients, partners, employers, children, and employees, talking about the issues of stress, anxiety, suicide, sexual assault, bullying, and general bias of some form, it really is eye-opening, and eye-watering how much that demand for support is.

We do what we can, but we're not clinicians, at the same time accessing support isn't as easy as it should be either. The good clinicians have waiting lists that are weeks long. Some places it's a case they have had clinicians, but no longer do because the compassion fatigue and depth of need are overwhelming and they pull out and go somewhere else or reduce services.

We have been talking to a clinician in a smaller New Zealand town, six months ago, they were 1 of 5 counsellors available for ACC referred work, today there are 2. One has a serious medical condition, another has moved out of the area, and another one has stopped taking ACC work. This leaves two counsellors for the whole district. With about 25 clinical sessions per week available each, this is far from enough for the demand. And this is just the ACC need, not the wider unfunded public need.

There is a deep-seated level of psychological harm in our communities, with people looking for help after 30-40-50 years of clinical mental health issues that have gone untreated on the most part. We need to be able to address the harm as soon as it starts, not leave it to fester and get worse because resources are not available. Part of the answer is the funding, the other part of the answer is having skilled people trained and available in our communities. 

Mental health is hard work; you're dealing with cognitively compromised people. Behaviour, reactions and understanding, all being an issue results in a significant level of compassion fatigue with the counsellors. And these people often have to deal with the front line reality of what humans do to other humans. And sometimes that really is shocking!

We have some insurance options that can help, the challenge is these have to be in place before first symptoms are present to be effective, so potentially is the answer for some, but for most looking for support who don't have the cover, it's not going to help much.

NZ needs better support in this area, with 1 in 4-5 experiencing a clinically mental health challenge right now, today, here in NZ, what we presently have is not good enough!

NZ Herald article on the report

You’re looking for insurance cover, be it for your life, home, income or health. You have two choices. You can use an insurance advisor to do all the hard work for you, or you could purchase straight from the insurer's website. Which one will you pick?

Obviously, we recommend that you use an insurance advisor and today we’re explaining the five most important reasons why.

5 Benefits You Get When You Use An Insurance Advisor

Yup, we’re insurance agents here at Willowgrove Insurance. Yup, we recommend that you use our services rather than purchasing a generic package from your bank or from an insurer’s website. Yes, we receive a commission from an insurer when we do sign up a new client. However, we’re insurance advisors for many reasons, including the fact that we strongly believe we provide people like you with the best service and insurance policies around. Here are five benefits you can receive by using someone like us:

1. Accurate assessment – often a new client will come to us, and we’ll identify that there is a problem with their existing insurance policies. Often they’re paying more than they need to, have exclusions and conditions which don’t need to be there and they’re either under or over covered. Before we offer any policy, we find out exactly what you need and what you have. Why pay for something which is unnecessary? We wouldn’t.
2. Personalised attention – not everyone is the same, nor do they have the same needs. We tailor our service around what our client needs, offering only policies which match these as close as we can get.
3. A wide variety of insurers – as independent insurance advisors, we’re not associated with any insurance company. This means that we check out all the suitable insurers for you to find the one which offers the best cover for the best price.
4. Multiple policies – often a client doesn’t just want one type of insurance. Sure, an insurance company’s website may let you purchase more than one type, but you’ve got double the work to do to get that. Often you’ll need to use multiple websites to get all the cover you require. We will sort all your cover for you at one time. Just tell us what you want, and we’ll do our very best to get it.
5. We can handle pre-existing conditions and exclusions – for some clients, obtaining insurance is a battle due to personal circumstances. Often it requires the completion of multiple forms, back and forth with the insurer and flat-out denial of cover. This isn’t a problem for us. We work with clients every day whose pre-existing conditions or exclusions are either accepted or taken on board by their new insurer. It’s about knowing who to approach and what to do, and we do both of those exceptionally well!

To take advantage of these five benefits and more, choose to use an insurance advisor from Willowgrove Insurance! We’re here to help and our service is free to you. Get in touch with our team today and let’s get you covered.

If you’re planning to rent your home, first do your research about landlords insurance. That’s because regular homeowner’s insurance will not cover your investment property once a tenant moves in. As insurance advisors, we know our stuff and have done the hard work for you, compiling this key guide about the must know aspects of landlords insurance for you.

Making Understanding Landlord Insurance Simple

In a nutshell, landlords insurance can cover your rental for a range of situations, from damage throughout to loss of rental income. Like with all insurance policies, the cover you receive depends on multiple factors. Your premium, past insurance history, the type of policy and even the property’s location are taken into consideration by the insurer and result in the offer they make to you.

If your rental is freehold, insurance may not be compulsory. However, if it has a mortgage, then the lender will want it fully covered! We recommend that all rental properties be insured because you never know what’s going to happen.

What Does Landlord Insurance Cover?

As a landlord, there are additional risks your property faces, compared with if it was owner-occupied. Because of these risks, the policy covers different aspects and is customised for your property and needs. In general, having insurance for your rental can cover you for things such as:

• Natural disasters
• Fire
• Property damage caused by chemical contamination, vandalism or accidents
• Liability protection, such tenant injury or carelessness
• Theft or malicious damage by tenants
• Loss or rent due to a disaster or damage
• Drug manufacture, exposure or residue contamination
•  Furnishings including curtains, carpet and other furniture

Getting the Right Amount Of Insurance Cover

Like with other insurance products, you want to ensure you are fully covered and at the lowest cost. Yes, you could head to one of the big insurance sites and fill in their forms online to get an instant quote. You could even sign up on the spot. The question is though, should you?

As insurance advisors, our team knows that everyone is different and in this case, not all rental properties are the same. Consequently, we never take a generic view of our clients. We sit down and find out about specifics related to your rental property, discuss the pros and cons of certain types of coverage and approach multiple insurers on your behalf to get the best deal for you. Its free for you too, as the insurers simply pay us a fee once you commence your policy.

Come and book a time to chat with one of our team now. We’re here to make obtaining landlords insurance easier and more affordable for our clients throughout New Zealand.

Right oh, if you are reading this from the perspective of trying to claim, we might be a bit shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Though there may still be things we can do, so do check out our claims advocation service. Where we can we help people get the support they need from what is available.

For those who are looking for life insurance and wanting to find the best deal on life insurance, this is the starting point. Knowing what you don’t know that can hurt you.

The best deal in life insurance is a policy that responds and works when it is needed, not the premium you pay. Because paying a cheap premium doesn’t necessarily mean you have the right cover. Nor does it guarantee you put it in place correctly.

The right cover:

Now I know there’s plenty of don’t sell me anything and don’t talk to an adviser they’ll sell you something you don’t want. Frankly, while there are situations like that, we don’t work like that.

No, we’re worse, we’ll take your situation and scare the bejesus out of you with your own reality. Sorry, salespeople pftt! They’ll sell you something, we’ll advise on the reality, and unfortunately for many, the reality isn’t so pretty.

Not to worry, we have an in-house rule, we only implement cover once we have a clear understanding our client knows and understands what they are making a decision about, and we have explicit permission to proceed. We want to know that you understand what we are doing for you.

With Willowgrove Consulting you will end up with the cover you need, you have decided on, and what you consider the most appropriate for you. And if you don’t like it, we’ll help you make it right.

Now that’s not to say we’ll agree with every decision you make (usually to under insure) at the same time we will work damn hard to ensure you have the right cover for the risk you want covering.

And when it comes to claims, that last statement is the key one. If you don’t have the right cover for the situation, you need the support for, no matter how good the broker, adviser, claims manager or insurer is if the policy doesn’t cover it no claim will get paid.

What’s next?

Underwriting and disclosure, of everything you do this piece, is the piece you have control over, second to deciding what cover you want. If you are not upfront about your medical, financial, and occupational situation, you will have trouble at claim time.

Insurance is based on a contract of good faith, good faith that you have told the truth to the best of your knowledge, and the insurer in the handling and management of your policy.

In the New Zealand market, we don’t have any particular insurer that is more difficult to deal with at claim time than any other, in terms of the decisions made. What is difficult with some is their level of communication and service alongside their policies.

We hear many stories of insurer X is a pain in the arse, and we don’t want to be there while hearing insurer X is awesome from the next client. This is usually driven by a bunch of reasons; usually, our first point, get the right cover, and this point, be truthful with the insurer.

We are yet to see an insurer, with all the information, decline a valid claim they should have paid. Yes, we have seen many insurers backtrack decline decisions with additional information, and even some that had still paid when they shouldn’t have when the insurer was knowingly lied to by people around the claimant and the insurer knew about it.

So when you hear a story about an insurance claim being declined, ask a few more questions. Because the insurer is an arseh%&e, isn’t a reason, that is an opinion. The why of the situation is the real reason, and it comes back to the two points of right cover and right disclosure.

Disclosure, how much and what should you be doing:

We have had some recent high profile cases where the insurer has declined to cover claims, in all of them, we have seen, the reason for the decline was non-disclosure of information that the client should have been aware of.

Now to say an appendix out 20 years ago was the problem for travel insurance is potentially a stretch that wouldn’t fly in a reasonableness test. Adhesions and scar tissue that was causing abdominal pain before getting on the plane is quite a different story and is one that the client should be aware of, and should be disclosing.

And it is this understanding about disclosure that the general public is struggling with. Yes, the appendix out should have been disclosed. But in reality, every underwriter, if there have not been symptoms in the 20 years since, will take a look at it and go tick, sorted and not ongoing, not likely to be a problem and move on without excluding it.

It’s when there are symptoms that have been noted that haven’t had a clear answer that start to cause issues. Many people have been to the Dr and said, this hurts. The Dr says I think it’s this, take this if it doesn’t resolve in a few days to a week come back.

And then nothing. Did this condition resolve itself, or was there ongoing for a time. Did the Dr follow it up or was it left to fester?

It is these situations that cause all manner of issues with claims, especially when there are multiple notes for similar but slightly different symptoms in peoples medical notes.

So when it comes to disclosure, you are better to say I think there was something rather than not say anything at all. I think I had xyz, but it’s not been a problem for years, is far better than taking the stance of I think I had something, but it’s resolved so I won’t bother. The later could come back and bite you.

We once had a client submit an application with every box ticked and every page filled in and then some, with about 100 pages of medical notes. The existing cover had some severe exclusions we didn’t think were fair nor should apply.

Yes, the client was looking at us sideways saying, you sure about this, there’s a lot of information there? We said, hold my beer!

The result, we ended up with a single exclusion. While there was plenty of medical history, there wasn’t anything outside an operation on a knee that was ongoing and not resolved.

This is our point, disclose everything you can to the best of your knowledge, this puts the underwriter on notice for the issues, and they can then decide if they are going to cover them, and often they are quite fine with the disclosure and don’t exclude things if they have resolved.

It also means if the underwriter needs more information they can ask and you have discharged your obligations of good faith.

Additional to this you can also submit a copy of your medical notes if you have them. The insurance companies only ask for medical records if they need them.

They will not ask for them because you said they should get them. This is for a couple of reasons.

• They have to pay the Dr’s for them, so the more they ask for, the more costs they experience. This translates straight to higher premiums for you, so they try and manage this as best they can.
• The second and more significant, back in 2009 the Privacy Commissioner of the time rules that insurance companies were not allowed to ask for clients medical notes unless they had a specific reason to do so. They couldn’t request the whole file, and they had to limit their request to the matter they needed information for.

So if you are relying on the insurance company to request your medical notes to cover your non-disclosure or missed information, That’s not going to work, and it is the government’s fault, not the insurers.

Clearly, this has implications for you the policyholder in a negative way, if you don’t like it, please have a read and respond to the privacy commissioner here.

In our experience, no one has been overly concerned about their medical information being available to an insurer. If you feel your medical notes are necessary for your insurer to get it right, by all means, request them from your Dr and submit them with your application form. You have the right to request them under the privacy act, they are your notes.

But don’t tell the Dr they are for insurance purposes, as they will either refuse on the basis they want the insurer to request them (so they get paid), or they will want you to pay for them.

Either way, we feel the current environment is weighted in favour of the medical profession to limit the work they have to do and ensure they get paid more for doing it than it is about insurers trying to avoid claims.

Clients, advisers, and insurers are not being served well with the current privacy rules in place. And the only people that can lobby this change is the public, as the medical and insurance industries are seen to have too much interest in the conversation to be seen as unbiased.

So you now have your cover:

From this point, if the above has been done well, you now have the protection you can rely on. Ensure the premium is paid and when a claimable situation comes up, you should have no trouble with the claim process.

However, if you are claiming, get your adviser involved, they should be helping you manage this so you can focus on getting well and recovering.

Which is to say, one of your questions right at the start should be, Mr/Mrs Adviser, do you manage the claims for your clients directly? If not why not?

We get involved with claims, we want to ensure that the promises made about your coverage happen as they were intended.

Then make your decision about who your adviser is.

The claim process:

Well, I haven’t talked much about that, because that’s what your adviser is also for.

To sum it up, the claim process:

• Have an event
• Call your adviser; hopefully you have someone like us ;)

And yes, the claim does start with the advice and the application form, not the event that is claimable.

Before you buy life insurance, stop. To make the best purchase for you and your family, there are five key things you should know before you buy life insurance. Today we’re discussing them with you.

5 Key Understandings to Learn Before You Buy Life Insurance

The NZ Herald published an article titled Six Biggest Life Insurance Mistakes Kiwis Make. It emphasised that life insurance is often purchased because an event has occurred, such as getting a mortgage or having kids. Maybe because people are consumed with thinking about these events that they make these mistakes, but we don’t know for certain. However, we do agree that they are mistakes you should know about them before you make them! So, in a way, our five key understandings on buying life insurance could be thought of as five ways to avoid making big mistakes. They are:

1. Know what’s covered and what’s not – those sneaky pre-existing conditions may not be covered by your new provider, nor may your high adventure activities, should the worst happen to you. Before you sign up, check if there are any exclusions!
2. Personalise your cover – not everyone needs the same cover. As your insurance advisor, we will work with you to identify the best $ amount for your policy cover.
3. Find out about the qualifying period – when taking out new cover, know that there may be an exclusion period at the start where you may not be able to claim. While you can’t do much about this if it is your first life insurance policy, if it is a replacement, consider keeping your old one active until this period ends, or negotiate with your new provider about waiving the stand down.
4. Understanding the four roles in policy – it’s not just you taking out life cover. Instead, there are four other players involved too. The insurer is the insurance company the cover is with. The owner is the person who pays the insurance premiums. The insured is the person whose life is covered by the policy. The beneficiary is the person who would receive the policy pay-out should the insurer die.
5. Check the fine print – the definitions of terms in your policy can vary depending on the provider you select. This means you should understand what your policy says before you sign. By using us as your insurance adviser, we’ll do the reading for you and explain what it all means in layman's terms.

The best life cover is a product chosen and tailored specifically to meet your needs. We can do this for you. Book a time to chat with us today and together we’ll get you covered.

Seems defending ourselves is becoming the default position across most industries.

Where we have the misaligned, aggrieved and just plain biased, coming out of the woodwork.

While I get that there is an opportunity for people to have their say with the upcoming changes in the financial services legislation, some of what is coming out is so left field as to be based back in the ‘70’s when they last interacted with a life insurance adviser. Things have changed.

No, I’m not sitting here whining, that doesn’t help anyone. Though I am a life insurance adviser, so people automatically have a self-interest bias toward anything I say that remotely defends the industry.

Yup, I understand that. What I would like you to understand is I do what I do to help people. Drive the outcomes for them in a far better way.

My motivation for this comes from two places:

• After seeing what my mother went through with her breast cancer journey and her subsequent passing at age 57, with no insurance support.
• My own experience with the positive outcomes for clients driven by insurance benefits over the last 18 years

So please take what I say not so much as self-interest hyperbole but as a critical analysis of the reality as an insider.

Three things continue to hit the headlines negatively without balance.

1. Non-disclosure and access to medical notes, which I talk at some length here with the recent FairGo articles
2. Commission as an evil thing that should be banned
3. Soft-dollar incentives, which I talk about here with my industry article on good returns

What I want to tackle is the fee vs commission discussion.

Yes, In life insurance, like many occupations, we’re paid by commissions.

Personally, as a business person, I’m not a great fan of them as they come with the uncertainty that you have to pay them back for a period of 2 years if things don’t turn out as planned.

However, in the New Zealand market, the alternative of charging fees for advice is not realistic. Having offered clients the choice of fees for discounted premiums as the alternative for 18 months, no one has selected fees over commission for my payments.

Commission has had a bit of a beating in the media, with focus on the high % of the annual premium as the commission. And yes with a narrow focus on that one sale, it does look very high.

• What people outside the industry don’t realise and appreciate is that commission isn’t just about that one sale. It’s there to cover all costs associated with that policy.
• The marketing to discover that one success.
• The many people you speak to before you find the right one at the right stage that needs that advice, with some people that can take years.
• The time taken to get all of the advice and paperwork done on the many people that you can’t help for one reason or other
• The people who you take on who have ‘lost’ their adviser but still need service and support even though they don’t produce and direct revenue for the business
• The ongoing servicing of that policy once in place
• And ultimately the claim management along the way and at the end.

It’s been said if you are to fund this from commissions there’s some argument they should be higher.

For the typical life insurance adviser starting out it takes about five years before they get their business to a point where it’s paying them more than minimum wage if they are establishing a business as I outlined above.

If they’re just flogging polices as a salesperson, then that’s different, they don’t do much of the extra work, but they also don’t last too long in the industry, as the reputation for sales and no service bites them in the arse fairly quickly. My point about commissions being subject to clawback for two years.

This distinction between adviser and salesperson is a good part of the focus of the FSLAB legislation current working through the parliamentary process.

Honestly, I’m looking forward to these changes, as I have built Willowgrove Consulting to work to and exceed these changes and expectations on financial advisers.

It’s going to mean we have a competitive advantage from day one in being a license holder and it should be relatively business as usual for us when it all comes into effect. For many others it’s going to be a lot of hard work, we’ve already done those hard yards.

Back to the commission situation.

We used to have an industry that ran with tied advisers, they worked for and sold that company’s products as got paid a commission.

Then we had demutualisation, and the Independent adviser was born, they could work with many companies and get paid on commission.

The advantage of the independent adviser is you as a consumer got access to a broader range of policies with the one provider.

However, this had its ethical challenges that we have today and the FAA, and FSLAB legislation is looking to address. And that was the movement of your policy every two years to another provider to clip the ticket with commissions again.

Fast forward to today, and the debate is about bias and incentives from commissions. I agree there is the potential for this to be a problem, and with some adviser it is.

The reality is this behaviour doesn’t last long. Insurers are hot to trot on any adviser behaviour where their book is getting moved on a regular basis. The adviser is also usually picked up by the harm for clients that is created too.

The insurers deal with these advisers by cancelling agencies and kicking them out, though more could be done here with all companies responding in kind. There needs to be a process for this managed through an independent body as it does have the opportunity for malicious abuse by an insurer where there has been disagreement. But that’s a discussion for another article.

When we look at commissions vs fees across the industry one model doesn’t suit every discipline.

• For investment advice, I agree fees are the most appropriate approach; there has been a demonstrated bias of advice with provider commissions in the finance company crash. Though 90% of that debacle and loss to investors did not have a financial adviser involved.
  The problem was the stuff that did have adviser involvement had a commission bias to the advice; it paid more than more appropriate products.
  The advantage of investment advice is you are talking to clients who have money, usually a considerable sum, and can afford to pay professional fees.
• General insurance, this has traditionally been a flat rated commission product as it has a life expectancy of 12 months between reviews and has a higher propensity to be changed as physical risk situations change quite quickly, much quicker than that of peoples health.
  Fee for service is a possibility here, however as the commission rates of general insurance is pretty static and consistent, there isn’t a bias from commissions in this area.
  Add to that the reason people need insurance is because they don’t have the resources to cover the risk; fees become a barrier to access. As we have seen in many natural disasters with people not having the cover that they should, fees would make this worse.
• Mortgage finance, typically this is commission based remuneration with no discounts for charging fees instead of commissions.
  There is a preference as a result for providers that pay commissions as they provide the lowest cost to the client when financing, new or refinance.
  This part of the industry does charge fees when dealing with a provider that doesn’t pay commissions. However, this is usually loaded onto the lending and is effectively financed. Which has a perspective when looking at life insurance.

Then we have life insurance:

This is a product that is typically sold rather than bought.

Those seeking life insurance usually have an event or problem that has driven them to ask, which generally makes placing cover a challenge. So finding people to be ‘sold’ is the typical approach to ensure people have cover before they develop conditions and become uninsurable.

With life insurance, the pricing of the cover by the insurers is done over a seven-year term, about where the average age of policies sits.

While the commission rate on a life insurance sale looks high as an upfront, there are many ways this can be paid, from an all upfront basis to a level commission spread over the term of the policy, in a similar way and level to general insurance.

We’re about to go down the path of having to disclose commissions. The submission from Financial Advice New Zealand on this makes a lot of sense. How I take commission has little to do with the premium you pay as a consumer, you still pay the same premium if I take it upfront or spread out.

Looking at the various providers in the market, the commission component in your premium makes up somewhere between 10%-20% of your premiums. That’s the insurance company’s distribution cost.

In the same way, Briscoes buys a toaster for $50 and sells it for $100, that $50 pays for all of their business operations costs.

With insurance companies, that commission cost at 10-20% of the premium is their sales and marketing cost to move that product.The other 30% is their operating costs for staff and premises etc. The insurer still has a purchase cost to your insurance cover in the form of reinsurance that happens in the background.

The reality for many clients taking life insurance is they don’t have the financial resources to pay fees, that’s why they need life insurance.

With the typical professional adviser spending 12-14 hours per client from enquiry to completion, the associated professional fees add up quickly.

People look at the commissions and say that’s high, yes on a $3-4-500/month policy they can be, however by the same token when you’re doing the same amount of work for a $5/month policy it balances out quickly.

Ok got that?

Let’s talk about the core issue; a commission is evil and bad for life insurance.

In the context of the above, it’s actually the better option to the rest.

When people talk commissions, they overlook the reality of other distribution approaches.

If you step back and look around, with banks and direct insurers they too have a commission model, you don’t see it in the same way.

The person you’re talking to at the bank or direct insurer gets paid a wage or salary, that’s reward for doing their job. Selling you their product.

Sitting behind that is likely a bonus or commission structure too. If they hit sales targets, they get paid a bonus. If they don’t sell you products, they lose their job.

Frankly no different to the pure commission salesperson. For some reason, people seem to think because there’s no commission there’s no bias.

I’m calling that bullshit.

The reality of the vertically integrated sales channel is they can only sell you their product. They have even more incentive to sell you their product and move you away from your current situation as they only have access to their product.

I know I used to run a national risk operation that had only one life insurance provider. I’m very well versed in how this works.

As a caveat on my comment about running the national insurance operation, they now have more than one provider and do a great deal of good in how they operate.

However, the vertically integrated operations don’t do the comparison work and usually don’t have the research to support their advice, because they’re often inferior products. So they don’t want to show you that.

Frankly, these organisations have a higher propensity for harm than commission based sales. They don’t explain to you the risks of their advice. It would kill their sale.

When you look into the history of life insurance advise in New Zealand and look at the cycles of business, it has a telling reality we need to coinsider. If we were to ban life insurance commissions, you wouldn’t see a sudden move to fee-based advice.

Sure some operators would. Most, however, will shut their doors and end up working for newly established sales and distribution arms of the insurers.

This would result in us returning to the bad old days of the mutual company tied adviser sales. Taking us back to the dark ages and reducing the quality of advice in the market.

The likes of the online sales companies with multiple providers would disappear, you’d be left to do your own legwork on which provider was best.

The reality of banning commissions would be to make life insurance sales a pure sales industry and not an advice one.

The salespeople would be paid a salary and a bonus based on performance, and they would be shown the door quickly for lack of performance.

I know this for a fact, in the last ten years I have seen several operations take this approach and they have not worked.

So, is commission evil?

• In the eyes of the vertically integrated providers, yes. It creates significant competition for their business.
• From the consumer perspective, the perception is yes, as people don’t like being sold to. Which is why we take the education and advice approach we do here at Willowgrove Consulting.

That perception is driven by those with deep pockets and vested interests. Yes, salespeople have had a shocking reputation, and life insurance has been maligned for a long time. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

It is time those perceptions should be challenged.

• Independent life insurance advisers able to provide anyone product ensure you as the consumer have choice.
• It ensures there is a range of competitive products that are of good quality at reasonable premiums.
• It gives you access to products that suit your needs. No square peg in a round hole that you get with the bank and direct providers.

Yes, there is the advice bias that comes from the incentive to move your cover from one provider to another, because they’ll get paid. That doesn’t change in any remuneration model, and it's not unique to commission.

However, there are a couple of things that you can do to manage this last point.

And yes, it makes my job harder, however, if I can’t explain it as your adviser, you shouldn’t take it.

• Ask for the research on why the change/move/advice is better, written not verbal.
• Ask for the adviser justification, again written not verbal.

Additionally with the FSLAB changes coming there will be more requirements for advisers to disclose certain aspects of the advice they give:

• Commissions and incentives
• Written advice and justification for the advice
• Adherence to the financial adviser code of conduct
• Licensing and compliant advice processes
• The requirement to put the client first. We operate like this already; however, there are only about 600 Authorised Financial Advisers out there who have to put your interests first

Everyone else, including banks and insurers, only have to comply with advice given with due care, competence and skill.

I've raised and covered many contentious issues with this. Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of why commission remuneration for life insurance is actually a good thing for you as the consumer.

Vertical integration and tied advice models only drive outcomes for the corporates.

Don't let their deep pockets usurp your rights to access good appropriate advice for your personal situation.

Please make a submission to the FSLAB and disclosure reviews. Consumer views are needed to give balance to the industry submissions.

Ok, I’m riled. Be prepared for a bit of a rant with this one.

So we’ve had Partners Life on FairGo for two weeks in a row. Frankly, a beat up, but then I’m expected to say that...

However, working through the FairGo article, and you can see it here on TVNZ on demand, there are a number of things I have an issue with, and some I agree with.

First of:

To single out Partners Life is unfair, all of the insurers have similar levels of disclosure required.

While FairGo has a crack at their application form, the Partners Life application form is the easiest one in the industry to get through.

The rest are spread across the spectrum of pain in the arse to relatively similar.

What I do agree with is; applications are the worst part of the life insurance advice process. I hate them just as much as clients do.

However, working through an application form, the best way to get through it is with an adviser like me.

I focus on disclosure, and to date, we’ve had no claims declined for non-disclosure.

Not to say it doesn’t happen, but we proactively address it before claims occur, so clients know where their risks and holes are.

Yes, for many clients getting through it by yourself is daunting, want it done right, get me alongside you, and we’ll get it done.

It’s part of my job; it’s not admin to be done in seclusion, it is pain in the arse admin to be done together.

Second:

Then there’s the lawyer... interesting with a supposed background in insurance; he has got no idea about how access to medical notes works.

Writing on the application to get notes or permission to get notes doesn’t help. The declaration and consent page already includes all of this.

The Privacy Commissioner is solely responsible for insurers not requesting full medical notes; after ruling that insurers can only ask for information that helps their underwriting decision and only if they already know about it. They can't go fishing.

The complete discussion is here, which includes the discussion point about insurance disclosure and the need for applicants to be clear on their disclosures

This decision, while well-intentioned, creates an environment of don't know what we don't know, for clients and the public.

Frankly, us advisers, the insurers, and our clients would love to have insurers have full access to medical notes at underwriting time. It would solve the non-disclosure issue.

If you have an issue with an insurer not having full access to your medical notes when you apply for cover, contact the the privacy commissioner and tell them so! We have been, but they’re not listening to us.

Third:

The lawyer's attitude is about insurers wriggling out of claims; frankly, that’s bullshit.

Having worked with all insurers and the people in claims for nearly 20 years, without exception, every single person administering claims gets up and goes to work every day looking to find ways to pay claims.

These people do an often thankless but critical job in the insurance world. It’s worse than IT when it goes well it’s silence, it worked, when it doesn’t go well, all hell breaks loose, and they’re called every name under the sun.

Hell, these people cop this sort of crap, and they turn around and go and do it again day after day, that takes a particular kind of person. It’s hard enough with my clients when they claim, let alone only dealing with claims day in day out.

If you think different, you’ve probably been watching too much of the movie Incredibles. It doesn’t work like that here in NZ.

Fourth:

The size of the issue, you could be forgiven for thinking this is an issue that is rife in the industry and few claims get paid. Well, it's quite the opposite.

As to claim stats, depending on the insurer, they pay and settle 92-98% of claims. That’s paid, not closed and declined.

The rest that are not paid fall into two camps, non-disclosure and no claim as the condition or situation was not covered by the policy.

Fifth:

The ministers' comments in the FairGo article miss the original point on the cover in the original story from the previous week; income protection cover would not have been offered, had the insurer known about the sleep apnoea.

Which is the answer from every other insurer for income protection.

The guy who got declined didn’t disclose what he knew and said so on national TV.

He uses a prosthesis every night when he goes to bed for snoring from diagnosed mild sleep apnoea.

When it comes to the question asked in his application: sleep disturbances (insomnia or obstructive sleep apnoea) he skipped it / ignored it / or plain old chose not to say anything.

Suggesting that insurers wouldn’t have the ability to turn this claim down because it’s an unrelated condition causing disability, is only going to drive more non-disclosure, so people avoid being loaded, excluded or declined.

This will drive an increased level of claims, which isn’t priced for or considered in the premiums.

Which will result in increases in premiums, which leads to less insurance not better or more coverage, for the population.

Want a simple answer to this, reverse the Privacy Commissioners decision and let insurers ask for the full medical history of clients at application.

The insurers hate the situation and the press, just as much as everyone else does.

My thoughts on where this will go if clear heads don't prevail:

The reality of the government tinkering with the law in this area, it is likely to create unintended consequences, ones that will result in severe negative impacts on policyholders, the very people they’re trying to help.

We have some of the best insurance law in the world in many cases.

• Laws that prevent insurance companies taking cover away once it is in place provided it is put in place in the right way, and most of it is (92-98% by the stats).
• Laws that ensure changes in health cannot be reviewed after the policy is in place.

Yes, the treatment of non-disclosure could be better, but also too, he who holds the gold makes the rules.

If the changes proposed are too onerous we will see insurers exit. We will see reduced appetite to offer cover, and with lack of competition and burdensome requirements, we will see increased premiums. (Australia is roughly double the NZ premiums for the same/similar cover)

We will see the rich diversity of options removed in favour of plain vanilla cover that isn’t suited to peoples individual needs. A bit like the suit on the rack, designed for the average, but doesn’t actually fit anyone.

We have seen this in many overseas markets which have looked to control this, and they have failed to fix the fundamental flaws they tried to fix.

Because those without knowledge and understanding of insurance, are making decisions about the industry that aren’t based on reality.

They don’t engage people who know, because of their perceived bias, as too, when they do talk to them, they ignore what they’re saying.

Proof in concept, the announcement today on meth testing in NZ homes. Talk about a mess, so who’s right? Keeping in mind that the government only just reset the levels associated with meth contamination.

Certainly look at the operation of the advice industry, it needs a tidy up and needs to bring in a level playing field for all participants, including insurers.

But be very careful tinkering with the law governing insurers and how they operate insurance policies, the consequences of this may be far-reaching and likely undermine the security of today’s cover for policyholders and people insured.

I’m proud to be part of the financial services industry and proud to be a life insurance adviser, helping people manage their risks. It’s a privilege to be invited into peoples lives to assist them in this way.

Yes, when I first started in the industry aged 25, I too had preconceived ideas about what insurance was about, and I wondered what I’d done wrong to end up here.

That was short-lived, this is one of the most dynamic, fun and entertaining industries you will find. It is one where the people in it appreciate just how fragile life is. They live it daily, so they also live life too.

The media:

It does piss me off when the media has a crack at what is clearly a beat-up story, yes there are challenges, but pick something with some real meat to it.

Not the policyholder who is dying and has a declined claim because they chose to lie on their application form to fraudulently gain cover and make a big deal about it on TV in the hope the insurance company will pay for the positive PR.

We seem to be afraid to call out the crooks, because we may hurt someone’s feelings. We need to stop the crooks and the fraud because it hurts the majority of New Zealanders who are not crooks and frauds. They are the ones paying the higher premiums or choosing not to have cover for fear of the scarmongering stories that have little basis in reality.

Go and find the case where the insurer has wriggled out of a claim on a technicality. The reality is the truth of the situation, as hard as it might be, doesn’t make good TV. Insurers pay claims at shitty times in people lives. Those people are grateful for that support, and they don't want it spread across the TV and broadcast to the world.

We have hundreds of thousands of people waiting for surgery, we have holes in our medical and social systems that cause significant harm, yet we don’t see this reality with FairGo.

The life insurance industry:

The life insurance industry does an enormous service to the New Zealand economy; both with employing people, but more importantly, by helping people in their most challenging times of life with the medical and financial support they need.

The lack of calling out the fraud by the public and beating up financial institutions, does the thousands of people involved in financial services doing a great job, a massive disservice.

You hear the negative before you and believe the bad press, go and find the positives. There are more positive stories than negative ones, they just don't tell them often. This client has for me, as have all my clients that have had serious claims.

For the kiwi blokes, here’s John (Cocksy) Cocks talking about his experience.

And further reading with an article I wrote some 4 years ago on the subject of application forms, that has not changed.

Bones. We’re all born with them. Some are big, some are little. Some break often and some grow crooked. As we age, they show their age just like the rest of our body. Our hips and knees are often the first thing to wear out. But how will you know when you need a hip replacement?

4 Signs Which Show You May Need a Hip Replacement

Your hip is a ball and socket joint. It helps you to move your legs and can move in many ways. The ball of the joint is the top of your femur or thigh bone. The socket is the hollow in your pelvis where the ball sits. There is a capsule made of fibrous material which holds the bones together. This is filled with synovial fluid which helps keep the joint moving freely. Muscles are responsible for helping rotate and move this joint.

Things don’t often, but they can go wrong. The reasons why people need a hip replacement vary, but here are four signs which show one may be on the cards:

1. You have pain in your hip almost all the time. It may keep you awake at night.
2. Your hip is stiff. You might be unable to get your shoes and socks on or off easily. It is hard to bend down or even stand up sometimes.
3. Your mobility is limited. You find it hard to walk to the letterbox anymore, or can’t do the long dog walks you used to. Mobility differs for everyone, but if you can’t do what you used to, you may be needing a hip replacement.
4. Pain relief is no longer working, nor are assistive aids such as walkers or walking sticks.

But before you speed dial your GP, stop. There are two things to consider. Firstly, you may not be ready for surgery just yet because:

• Your hip pain slows you down, but you can still do what you want to do
• You can still undertake all the activities you enjoy doing, even though you can’t do the strenuous ones anymore
• You haven’t tried less invasive treatments such as therapy or medications yet

Now I also mentioned you’ll need to consider a second thing: you’re probably going to have to wait. Our public health system remains under pressure. Hip replacements are an elective surgery, which means they get bumped down the list. You can end up waiting for years and still need to wait more.

Unless you’ve planned ahead. Taking out medical insurance when you’re healthy may seem like gambling. You don’t know if you’re going to need that insurance, but you still have to pay regardless. Yes, that’s true. However, I can tell you about many clients who took out medical insurance policies also not knowing, but later on were so glad they had. They were able to have the surgery they needed to replace their hip or knee when they needed it. Free of pain and with a better quality of life, they can now start enjoying life again.

In the last few years, it has come to my attention that ACC's approach to weekly compensation claims for self-employed people is somewhat challenged.

This has been highlighted directly with a couple of situations with another colleague of mine and an ACC claim I have lodged myself.

There is a combination of lack of intuitive interface design by those involved with making ACC's system and the understanding of the medical people that use it.

Fundamentally ACC is an administration organisation and GP's deal with the medicine and people. They are not great with paperwork.

I sat down with my GP and had a conversation about my injury and lodging my ACC claim so that we can get things progressed. In my case, it was minor, just a follow-up physio for me and some imaging and testing.

However, what this highlighted and is creating the challenge, was when my GP got to the screen that was about employment.

The screen was asking about whether you worked or not.

However, the way the screen was designed, it was asking a question with a tick box 'Paid employment' at the top, and under this, there was a drop down box which defaulted employee.

Now the doctor took one look at this and said you are not an employee; you run your own business? Which I answered yes.

Moreover, the doctor promptly unticked the paid employment box.
To be fair, to me at first glance, the right answer was to untick the box too.

Now looking at the screen, the doctor has done exactly what the screen looked to be asking for. However, with a deeper understanding of what sits behind this, by unticking the box, my doctor just told ACC I am not working.

Which for my weekly compensation, if I was disabled from the accidental injury, I would be registered as a non-worker and would not be paid weekly compensation.

When I stopped and talked about what that screen shows and discussed what it meant. We then re-ticked the paid employment box and clicked through the employee defaulted pull down. What we saw was self-employed and shareholder-employee, in addition to Employee. Which is what you would expect, as those are the designations ACC uses for workers.

Once we discussed what this all means, my doctor has a much better understanding of what this is all about and downstream effects. However, I have got to ask the question, how many others have been impacted by this with my doctor, let alone every other doctor in the country?

Which brings me to my colleague, as he has been on claim weekly compensation for about 6 to 7 weeks. He was telling me earlier on the same day I visited my GP, how it had been a hassle with both ACC and the GP, though mostly ACC.

With my colleague's situation, he had fun getting on weekly compensation claim. He has had to constantly push to get things done.

His situation was compounded by the GP assuming that because he was self-employed, he could randomly take time off and not worry about any financial support from ACC and didn't sign him off work, even though he could not actually work. Agh!

Then when you got to talk to ACC Claims, they did not even bother looking at the situation, given that he is on what we call CPX, Cover Plus Extra, they were asking for financial proof and billing stuff, which was disappointing.

The point of CPX is it is an agreed value. With agreed value coverage, comes the lack of requirement to prove financial loss, at any point in the ACC claim process.

What was interesting through the whole process for my colleague, he had hassles with ACC reverting back to the percentage based approach, and constantly had to swap systems for some unknown reason to deal with the CPX claim. So it sounds like ACC need to tidy up their act.

Moreover, to throw another spanner in the mix, a recent client who was injured in hospital, also had his GP not sign him off work.

I am not entirely sure what was reported back to ACC on the screen I discussed above, in work or not, just the initial medical certificate issued was fit for work duties. Which is ironic given picking up a T-Shirt was impossible for this client let alone doing any other work.

I get this might be partly the doctor's perception of self-employment, you can take any time off you like, and it does not really matter which is not the case.

The reality is a good number self-employed are self-employed to work 70 hours a week to avoid working for somebody else for 40 hours a week.

Though the truth be told, self-employed do have the flexibility of hours, but they do not necessarily have the flexibility of work, they still need to do the hours.

With ACC‘s recent restructure they have consolidated call centres and removed relationship manages in the field. We are expecting ACC customer experience to get worse, not better.

The reality, along with their own ideas which haven’t necessarily been aligned with the real world, looks like yeah sure it might be a cost reduction, but client experience is going to be worse for everyone.

What this means for us, as we are going to be the contact point that is going to make sense. We are going to be in a position to get the outcome that you are looking for.

When dealing with ACC, it might be about accessing treatment and claims, or it could be that you are self-employed and you need some help with managing your levies.

Making sure you are on the right levy codes, so you are paying the right levies, and you have coverage that you can rely on. We can cover all of this and generally make life much easier.

So if you do not have somebody in your corner for ACC claims or managing your levies, give us a call, we are experts in ACC, and we will get it sorted and done for you.

Pick up the phone and leave us a message, jump on the contact form or facebook message us here.

If you are like me, you have likely grown up with the view that drug use was something both criminal and for others. Especially for those selling and pushing the drugs.

Moreover, for the ones producing and selling controlled substances, yes, throw the book at them. For the users, however, my view is changing.

Don't misunderstand me, I have had my fair share of it being used around me over the years, but it has never been my thing.

We are seeing more and more evidence that medicinal marijuana has a place in the management and treatment of chronic long-term conditions. That I agree with and it is one that needs both a closer look and a faster response.

However, it is not what I am here to talk about.

What I am here to talk about is the concerning situation of both hard drug use and the noise that kiwi employers are raising the issue of difficulty finding workers that can pass a drug test.

• Should weed cost a worker their job critics say the testing regime is flawed
• Your Rights: Workplace drug tests legal
• Bill English says employers are regularly telling him that Kiwi's can't pass drug tests
• Labour hits back at PM English's comments that Kiwis are not applying for jobs due to drugs test requirements
• Bill English: Drug abuse preventing young Kiwis from working

When we take a step back and look at the situation; I have to question; is there a correlation between kids from my generation who did not achieve academically at school who ended up making their way into trades and finding alternative medicinal support for their lives?

Sure there's the argument that life is not great and drugs are an escape, yup, that happens and has always happened. At the same time is there another reason for this?

A bit of my story

Sure many discoveries happened before people attained the age of 30 as too many medical discoveries have happened with non-medical people facing a situation they could not find an answer to.

So here I am at 43 with a diagnosis of Adult ADHD, which is interesting as I was that pain in the arse distracted, overachieving kid.

The flipside, everyone around me, almost without exception, has said, "No **** Sherlock, I could have told you that!". Which has been good on several levels, people already accepted me like that, so no change for me. However, for many, they do face judgement and attitudes that aren't quite so positive.

It is hitting 40 and facing a number of developing medical conditions that have brought me to this place. As to it has forced me to reflect on a number of things in life along the way.

The upside, not having messed myself up with illicit substances, my treatment regime is pretty vanilla. What wasn't so good was the level of caffeine and chocolate I was consuming to keep me functioning, but that is another story for another day.

A couple of symptoms of the ADHD brain is both distractibility and hyper-focus. If the brain is interested in a subject, it will often hyper-focus on it. For me, this has meant a lot of success in my chosen fields in my career, technology & IT and financial services. My brain hyper focuses on systems, processes, technology and medical situations, which makes me uniquely suited to being a Life Insurance Adviser and explains why general insurance and investments just aren't my thing.

Which also brings me to this point; where bringing together disparate and the seemingly unrelated information often gets that puzzled look.

If you employ and manage an ADHD'er, there will be some great traits you love and some not so great traits that drive you nuts! Be gentle those with ADHD are often damn good employee's that have frustrating habits. Yes, they are different, but they are great at solving problems and finding creative solutions too.

I got that out front because those who do not have ADHD will look at what I am bringing together cockeyed and blame it on my crazy underlying condition, right or wrongly, I do not want your judgement, I want you to understand the message.

Ok, that has taken the better part of 700 words to get to the point, yup, that is me too!

So what is ADHD?

In simple terms, ADHD is a neurological condition where the executive function of the brain does not have enough stimulation to take control of the brain. As a result, ADHD'ers are easily distracted, have poor impulse and priority control, and are often more accident prone, which are a few of the many symptoms the condition can be responsible for. As too, they have some significantly helpful ones like hyper-focus and processing of disparat information to find creative solutions.

The correlation between trades and drug use.

Ok, bold statement, stick with me, and I will step you through what I have found.

First up, pregnancy.

Yup, we are mostly talking blokes in trades with drug use issues. However, this story starts way back in mums tummy.

If we look back to the 60's and 70's we started to see society change with more women entering the workforce and also working during pregnancy and after kids. This brings with it added stress and higher incidence rates of postpartum depression, both during and after birth. Life has got ever more stressful and so too have the depression & anxiety rates in the population.

Anecdotally this has been an increase in the number of women diagnosed with postpartum depression during pregnancy. This is typically situational type depression and anxiety manifesting as postpartum depression because they are also pregnant.

Many of these situations are ones where low serotonin is a good part of the problem, possibly due to baby depleting it as it grows and partly due to mum's personal circumstances. I do not have clarity on this, as I have not been able to locate decent data on historical postpartum rates and causes.

However, this article talks about the impact of SSRI antidepressant and antianxiety medications taken by mum during pregnancy and the subsequent effects on the baby that have resulted. The postulation that SSRI's are the cause is not one that I necessarily agree with, as the next article I talk about suggests. It would also seem there's a better correlation to Autism from postpartum depression during pregnancy than vaccines with this paper. I will focus on the ADHD aspect as this is the point of this article.

While the previous article talks about ADHD being induced by the use of SSRI's, they do not seem to have the full picture, as this article talks about the low serotonin environment for the developing baby being a key correlation point for serotonin problems for baby and subsequent diagnosis of ADHD later in life for that baby.

What's the timeline on this for today's blokes?

So rewind a bit. We have Gen X and Gen Y being born in the 60's and 70's and we also have the recognition of ADD and ADHD as a condition in the 90's. For many Gen X and Gen Y kids, they went through school before ADHD was a 'thing' to be diagnosing. It was happening in the US, but NZ was quite a way behind the eight ball on this.

As a result, we had many kids at school who did not achieve, many of them boys. They ended up in the trade and remedial classes as they struggled at school, they often had detentions and slipped by in the system. Often referred to as distracted, lacking intelligence and underperforming to their potential.

The girls, however, seemed to do better, but not always, and being less focused on trades for employment, took paths that played to their relative strengths, so haven't been quite as noticeable.

Later in life, the girls, being more pro-active with health, have been diagnosed and picked up my the health system, though many not before they went through the wringer with anxiety and depression diagnoses before they got to ADHD in their journey and potentially leads to the perception that more women suffer from mental health than men, when the reality is it's colser to 1:1.

For the boys who have struggled, they have entered the world of men; drinking, not talking about certain stuff, certainly not talking about mental health or health in general, and getting involved with the drug scene.

When I say drug scene, specifically the drugs that play with dopamine and serotonin systems in the brain. Methamphetamine, amphetamines, crack, heroin, cocaine & LSD.

For many of them, they have found life more normal when supposedly 'high' not understanding that 'high' for them is actually medicating them and as a result, they are able to function more normally. I've had this conversation with a number of people who basiscally smoked meth to function normally at work. When they went to work straight, as in not 'high' on meth, they more often that not got asked what was wrong and ended up with performance management going on.

Being on this inside; these blokes likely do not have the awareness, or perspective, to tell that they need to seek medical help to address an issue. Medical help that's relatively easy to access and could help them turn their life around.

So to round this out, many businesses of a white collar nature do not do drug testing, they do not highlight this aspect of their workforce, so those who are able to function in this environment, 'high' or not, have not been the subject of recent employment articles.

However, they may well have a patchy employment history, been subject to performance management on a regular basis, and not held jobs for any real length of time, either for job performance issues or boredom.

For the trades and blue-collar workers, it is a bit different from drug testing in the workplace has had a significant uptick. This has resulted in a pool of workers, probably damn good ones when they are straight (medicated), that have been excluded from the workforce.

These workers are the ones that need help, pretty straightforward help that would be significantly easier to deliver if the criminal aspect of drug use was not getting in the way and enabled more open conversations to avoid the fear and stigma of being an adict.

What can you do about this?

If any of this resonates with you, have a chat with your GP about investigating medical options for you, rather than illicit means of treatment that come with some serious risks.

Also too, this means that those excluded from working for drug use, may well have a medical authority to be able to return to work when medicated in the correct way.

While explaining many things, it may also mean they can pursue a new career in a direction that better suits them too.

You can find more information here on the NZ ADHD website, and there are a number of groups around that you can get involved with too.