The Life Insurance and Advice Working Group headed by John Trowbridge has called for a number of changes to the way the industry works, to improve productivity.

Recommendations include simplified statements of advice, less restrictive approved product lists and the introduction of a life insurance code of practice.

The group, created by the Financial Services Council and the Association of Financial Advisers, makes its suggestions in an interim report in response to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s damming industry review last year.

Other proposals that could improve productivity include insurers harmonising terms and conditions.

“Introducing greater consistency of insurance terms and conditions may help consumers and advisers to better understand insurers’ standard products,” the report says.

“It may also assist insurance product comparisons between currently offered policies.”

Inconsistencies also occur across online applications, and the report says the need to re-enter data when applying for extra cover should be scrapped.

“Efficiencies could be gained by pre-populating existing client information into online applications for sum-insured increases. It would also aid efficiency if online applications from insurers were in some way standardised or had consistent fields of required information.”

The report also floats the idea of a single online portal for application forms, sharing data among different insurers.

“A single online interface that enables a client’s information to be entered into a single application – with the information shared with different insurers – would enable multiple application forms to be completed while only requiring data input once.

“This could further enhance adviser productivity.”

The report considers the question of commissions and rules out a fee-for-service model.

It suggests five commission models for discussion: level commissions only, set at 20-30%; hybrid commissions with a maximum upfront commission of 80% and level commission thereafter; a modified hybrid with a commission below the current hybrid, plus a fixed-dollar payment; level plus fees; and level funded as a variation on the previous model.

Submissions on the report closed last week. A final report will be issued before the end of March.