New professional indemnity scheme released

A new professional insurance programme has been unveiled by Financial Advice New Zealand, along with the insurance brokerage Curated Risk.

Wednesday, June 8th 2022, 6:05AM 5 Comments

It updates existing systems of professional indemnity cover to bring them into line with the licensing requirements of the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act (FSLAA) of 2019.

This law imposes a tough regime of FAP licences on the industry.

“Previously, financial advisers had individual cover,” said Clinton Stanger of Curated Risk.

“Since FSLAA came in, it made more sense that the structure of professional indemnity insurance should be in the name of the licence holder, that's the FAP holder.”

Stanger said the new PI was a civil policy and covered cases taken against advisers by clients disgruntled with the advice they received.

“On top of the professional insurance cover there is management liability cover, which is an amalgamation of lots of previous liability cover. Statutory liability is one of the more important ones for our profession and also there is a cyber risk insurance policy.”

The new system has been made available to clients for about a week with a deadline by the beginning of July.

In monetary terms, Stanger said the level of cover would be decided by the FAPs themselves.

“But commonly it could be anywhere from $1 million to $2 million or up to $5 million as a limit.

“If a FAP needs a higher limit than $5 million, then we have access to insurers to provide that cover.”

Stanger would not divulge the level of premiums except that they were “very similar to last year”, and would vary more than previously.

Financial Advice New Zealand chief executive Katrina Shanks said the new system had several advantages.

She said in the past, the insurance scheme tried to fit all advisers into a box.

“What advisers will now find is an insurance scheme that is bespoke to their needs.”

In addition, previous caps have been removed.

“It is a modern new relevant product.”

The scheme also has new insurance companies backing it: Ando and Berkshire Hathaway, in place of NZI and QBE.

Tags: FANZ PI

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Comments from our readers

On 8 June 2022 at 9:49 am r paul said:
Seems well thought out.

Interesting if Katrina Shanks is misquoted or there is just a reporting error.

The article says Ando are an insurance company behind this. A simple check on RBNZ and Ando website shows that Ando is an agency not an insurance company - they use Hollard or Lloyds as the insurer,

Interesting whether FANZ really understand this offer if they have this fundamental fact wrong.
On 8 June 2022 at 12:51 pm jeff m said:
Looks to be a good initiative.

Advice is important and the tripartite relationship between the client, broker/ adviser and insurer works well.

Do not want to knock what looks like a well thought out relationship but there seems to be a lot of cooks in the kitchen

The individual adviser looking after customers who is part of a FAP
The FAP who seem to be the insured
FANZ who are some sort of facilitator
Curated Risk who seem to be the expert advisers on Pi - they seem to know their stuff so no issue there
Ando as an agency business
The insurance company behind Ando (is the Hollard or Lloyd)
Berkeship Hathaway
Plus reinsurers possibly

So a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

But worth a look.
On 9 June 2022 at 10:47 am Tash said:
Shame on me for not knowing, but if the policy is held by the FAP, how am I impacted by claims made by other FA's in the FAP? If the FAP's cover is not renewed due to too many claims, how am I prejudiced? Can cover continue in my name?
On 9 June 2022 at 1:04 pm cstanger said:
Tash - email me or give me a call and we can talk. www.curatedrisk.nz
On 10 June 2022 at 4:28 pm JPHale said:
@Tash, I would be more concerned about what the FMA is doing with the FAP licence to operate before I was worried about the PI in that situation. Restrictions on the licence or suspension of the licence would be more concerning as the adviser under a FAP...

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