Financial services firm WHK Group is reporting strong cross-sell rates for general and life insurance to its clients.

WHK Group Head of Lending and General Insurance Terry Lingard told insuranceNEWS.com.au the company is achieving conversion rates of more than 50% for general and life insurance.

“The conversion rates for getting lending customers to buy general insurance is about 85%,” he said. “For life insurance the conversion rate for lending clients to buying life insurance is between 60% to 70%.”

Mr Lingard says the company runs its insurance, lending, financial planning and accountancy businesses as separate divisions.

But when an employee in one division wants specialist advice on insurance or lending, an adviser from these areas is invited to meet the client.

“The client’s adviser will introduce the specialist and let them handle that area of the business,” he said. “The original adviser will co-ordinate the relationship to make sure all parts of the service come together.

“It works well because the specialist adviser is introduced as somebody the client can trust as they are from WHK.”

Mr Lingard says keeping specialist advice in-house discourages clients from going elsewhere and reduces the risk of them being poached.

“The lending, general and life insurance really work well together and [they] refer lots of clients to each other,” he said.

Mr Lingard says accountants have many clients who need insurance, and the accountants also introduce financial planners to provide investment advice.

WHK runs regular training for staff about all areas of the business so they can see cross-sell opportunities when they arise. 

“We have fortnightly training sessions to tell staff about areas such as insurance and we illustrate that with real case studies,” he said.

Regulatory changes, such as the Future of Financial Advice reforms, will have less impact on WHK’s revenue streams due to the cross-selling opportunities.

“Although our financial advisers do a lot of work in super, trauma and income protection insurance is usually sold outside a fund, so commissions will still be payable,” he said.

“There are also income streams coming from general insurance and lending business in super that are not affected by commission bans.”