What makes a risk life insurance broker truly independent?

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To be truly independent an insurance broker needs to:

   a)  have the freedom to be able to recommend any product from any provider and;
   b)  not recommend one insurance company over another due to convenience or financial incentive.

What makes a risk life insurance broker not truly independent?

Some brokers work for banks or insurance providers. ASIC audits have shown that these brokers write the majority of their policies with their employer or licensee.

Some independent brokers have the ability to offer policies from a wide range of insurance companies. However, in many cases they are not “truly” independent because they receive a financial incentive to write as much business as possible with only one or two insurance companies.

What is the advantage of having a truly independent broker?

A truly independent life insurance broker will always act in your interest and provide you with clear and up front information.

They will tell you which policy is the cheapest, which policy has the best features and which policy is the best combination of price and features (often it is the cheapest policy) and how easy or difficult each insurance company is likely to be to deal with at claim time.