Things that caught our attention this week
If you want hip surgery that’s quicker, easier to recover from, and you do not have to wait two years to get it, then you could go to India. Saving a heap of time and money seems like a good thing. In fact, it makes you wonder why we don’t send more people for this - as part of our national health system. After all, you could send half the people on the waiting list and not a single New Zealand-employed doctor, nurse, or surgeon, would be adversely affected. But thousands of New Zealanders would be able to get back out there. Which medical policies allow treatment overseas and on what terms? Subscribers to our research can find the details - log in to your Quotemonster account and if you have research added scroll down the menu till you find the item ‘Health benefit maximums’ and click on that.
The FMA has published a self-check guide to help you work out whether your conflicts of interest policy is up to scratch. It’s a good guide, Sometimes I think that the regulator has a very good, but very dry, sense of humour. For example, the form includes the statement “At a minimum your policy is likely to include…” which is above all the points in the guide. Clearly, it’s all got to be in there, and they couldn’t think of anything that would be optional. But seriously, once you have had a situation where conflicts of interest were undisclosed, you get to appreciate the value of a good policy. We’re using it to self-check our policy, and we don’t give any financial advice.
Sticking with the FMA, they have also released guidelines on the use of non-adviser staff in interactions with clients and the through the advice process. Reading between the lines you can tell that they have seen a rise in this activity. Even if you are a willing complier you can imagine how a member of staff could quickly begin to push the boundaries into advice out of a desire to be helpful to a client. Clarity on roles is essential. You can check out more via this link.
Westpac started selling a new product, Lifeprotect, online through a digital advice process, to its customers. The product is underwritten by Fidelity Life, of course, Goodreturns has an article at this link which covers it. Important to note that the process is only available to Westpac customers, so you’ll need to find someone with a Westpac account to take you through it. Or if you’re really keen and you don’t know anyone, you can ask me.
Oh yes, and that article on Westpac quotes JP Hale on AI and advice (he thinks it won’t replace advisers). I agree, but for different reasons to his. That’s a longer conversation - but on the subject of chatbots, that reminds me, Kelly O, has a great article on Chatbots pretending to be licensed therapists, which you will find posted here later today. I’ve recently seen an article on chatbots making other errors. It’s a big issue. As you know we are keen on using AI in this business. Some applications are easier to implement than others. We are currently investing a lot in building capacity in this area - and doing that in a way which doesn’t send precious data to unregulated data centres in jurisdictions where privacy protections are very low.
We are kind of addicted to stats in this office. Some that have come up recently are excellent and form part of our data for advice package that we make available to advisers serious about getting third-party data to support their advice process. The ones we have seen updated include: working age population, labour force studies, household economic survey, number of dwellings, number of households, net migration, visitor numbers and many more. We like to understand total market size, insurance acceptance across the market, and the potential unmet needs for cover. Anyone interested in these areas can contact us for a walk through the market model.