The Life Insurance Customer Group (LICG) has maintained its attack on the Financial Services Council (FSC), again claiming there is no evidence of extensive churning that would justify proposed reforms.

Membership of the LGIC comprises “dedicated advisers, business owners, licensees and industry leaders”, according to its website.

“The FSC has not provided any evidence, reason or data on which to base its ‘reform’ recommendations,” the group says in a statement. “Its commentary constantly points to a proposition of ‘churn’, but not concern about quality of advice on any other basis.”

The LGIC argues the FSC’s push for the Life Insurance Framework legislation is based on an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) report on life advice in 2014.

It says this report was based on a review of 37% of 79 advisers scrutinised by ASIC.

“The FSC feels it is justified to tarnish and punish all advisers licensed to provide personal insurance advice because of ASIC ‘findings’. Worse, in its proposed reforms, members of the FSC seek to reduce adviser remuneration to a point where, unless the client’s premium is more than $5000 per annum, it will not even recover adviser costs.”

The LICG says the FSC’s submission to this year’s stalled Senate inquiry into life insurance called for ASIC to differentiate between churn and advisers acting in clients’ best interests.

“The FSC is looking to ASIC to substantiate its ‘churn’ problem and justify its ‘reform’ measures,” the group says. “The FSC appears to have designed the framework ‘reforms’ to only address an implied ‘churn’ problem and almost nothing else.”