Risk specialist advisers in Australia who are contemplating their future in the industry are being offered an alternative pathway by a Queensland-based financial services firm.
The offer, being made by Australian Financial Advisory Network (AFAN), has been designed for risk specialist advisers who are either unable to, or elect not to, successfully complete the FASEA adviser exam by the end of 2021.
The basis of the proposition, positioned as a ‘Plan B’ alternative, involves the risk specialist adviser continuing to serve their current client base in a consulting capacity, in return for sharing trailing income with AFAN.
Under this model, AFAN says the consultant – formerly the adviser – will be able to:
- Sit in on client reviews with one of AFAN’s authorised representatives
- Make factual statements about the client’s insurance contracts
- Assist with claims and administrative inquiries
The firm says the only thing the consultant cannot do is say “I recommend…”
Remuneration
AFAN says it remunerates its consultants by passing on 70% of the ongoing trailing income, and that each consultant who joins the AFAN team is guaranteed to receive this trailing income for a minimum of five years.
A statement from the firm notes “Ideally we want our Consultants to stay for a longer period of time, but even when they do decide to retire they then become members of our AFAN Community. The AFAN Community allows our retired advisers to continue to pass on their knowledge & expertise to young planners coming through the ranks.”
Driving this initiative are established industry practitioners Ian Macpherson, Craig Ball and Paul Geisel, who jointly founded AFAN in 2019. A summary of their proposition says AFAN allows risk advisers to:
- Remain in the industry
- Continue earning an income
- Add value to their clients by introducing them to all of AFAN’s services
- Earn additional income when their clients utilise other AFAN services such as:
- estate planning
- retirement and financial planning
- commercial and private lending
- general insurance
- Substantially reduce their costs as expenses are shared within the co-op group
- Continue to have a purpose
- Pass on their knowledge and experience to younger advisers/planners
- Pass on all of the compliance and administration responsibilities to the team at AFAN
The firm notes that, other than recommending the ‘education pathway’, it does not appear that other licensees or industry bodies are doing much at all to provide a ‘Plan B’ for advisers and that hopefully some will see AFAN as their Plan B.
Click here for further details of AFAN’s Plan B proposition for risk advisers.