In the first week of the Financial Planning Association’s “Ask an Expert” advice service, only one question on life insurance was received.

FPA CEO Mark Rantall told insuranceNEWS.com.au the online service had received 98 questions during the week.

“This again confirms the issue that consumers don’t think about insuring their lives,” he said. “They will insure a car, a house, but never think about insuring their income or themselves.”

The questions received by the FPA covered topics such as superannuation, investing, finding a financial adviser and the cost of advice.

Mr Rantall says the intangible nature of life insurance does make it hard to sell to consumers.

“This is one of the reasons why life insurance has to be sold, although it is included in advice given by a financial adviser when talking about estate planning,” he said.

“And with the difficulty of making the consumer interested in life insurance, we are arguing that retaining commissions for only these products is in their best interest.”

The FPA says charging a fee – which could become significant when placing harder cases to underwriters – would deter even more consumers from looking at life insurance.

Mr Rantall says consumers contacting the “Ask an Expert” service have been told advice is not expensive, and using the commission option for life insurance makes it affordable, even with less attractive propositions.

The FPA is continuing to run the services for a few more weeks to encourage consumers to approach an adviser that preferably is a member of the association.