Client reviews – what is expected of advisers?
[Opinion] A complaint against an adviser who did not know his client had two life policies has led to some discussion on the importance of regular reviews.
Monday, February 9th 2026, 5:03PM 
10 Comments
by Steve Wright
This got me wondering what a life adviser’s conduct obligations might be when it comes to regular reviews.
Firstly, let’s deal with the adviser not knowing the client had a second policy.
Is it enough to simply expect the client to tell the adviser about policies the adviser has not implemented?
One can argue that clients should take responsibility for disclosing all their current policies (and any recently cancelled policies) to their adviser, but the likelihood is that is many won’t understand why this might be important and so may not.
I suspect advisers would be expected to front foot the issue with their clients and specifically ask the question (and make a record of both the question and the answer).
What are the adviser’s conduct obligations to get clients to undertake a review?
Generally speaking, advisers must take steps to see their client whenever events in a client’s life create a need for advice, regardless of planned regular reviews.
Some matters cannot wait until regular review time. For example, clients buying houses, having babies, or having a salary increase usually require an increase in cover or additional types of cover.
These changes should be implemented as soon as possible. Sometimes clients can increase cover quickly and without medical assessment under ‘special events’ benefits, but the time period to do this is limited, perhaps as short as 60 days after the event.
But what about annual or regular reviews where no apparent need for advice is obvious? Is it sufficient to offer clients a review, follow up once or twice when no reply is received and then, if a reply is still not received, simply assume the client doesn’t want one and leave it there?
Naturally, clients are free to decline a review, but they are not the expert and are unlikely to understand why a review may be important or why failing to undertake a review could be costly.
For this reason, I suspect a couple of simple telephone calls or emails by themselves may not be sufficient.
I believe advisers would now be expected to bring a level of structure to reviews. There are many questions an adviser should be asking their client at review (and not just “do you have policies I don’t know about?”).
These questions should be asked and answers recorded during review, followed by any necessary advice or recommendations.
I would consider sending the client this list of questions, appropriately framed, and with an explanation as to why a review is important (explaining possible consequences of doing nothing), when requesting a review.
This will allow the client to better understand the need for a review, giving them information that allows them to make an informed decision about declining a review.
Steve Wright has qualifications in economics, law, tax, and financial planning. He has spent the last 20 years in sales, product, and professional development roles with insurers. He is now independent and helping advisers mitigate advice risk through training and advice coaching.
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Comments from our readers
Firstly, let’s deal with the adviser not knowing the client had a second policy.
Yes, lets. The client didn't disclose it, and we all know that most advisers will ask. So that's that.
If you're a little better than just doing the very least to be "compliant" you might include a disclaimer in your docs that says you rely on the information provided by the client, accuracy, effects of non-disclosure etc. But such is not required.
What are the adviser’s conduct obligations to get clients to undertake a review?
To offer one. That's it.
No requirements on type, method, or frequency of the offer.
The client can refuse. The client can engage on a limited basis, or engage but not disclose all material information, or fully engage and cooperate.
And at the end of it all they might read your beautiful, all inclusive 350 page Statement of Advice and do nothing.
And that's OK.
Please, for the love of god, learn and apply the difference between what is required, what is recommended, and what is "best practice".
They are not the same things.
Agreed. I think we're saying the same thing.
You may be right, I might be OTT, but you may not – we are in a ‘principles’-based conduct regime after all.
Regardless, don’t you want the best for your client? Don’t you want them to know why they should not decline a review?
If something is not particularly onerous for you and could benefit your client (and possibly your business), why not do it?
If something is not particularly onerous for you and it may mean the difference between a successful complaint against you or not, why not do it?
Perhaps read Section 431L of the Financial Markets Conduct Act and Code Standards 1 and 4 again and try to imagine how a DRS might interpret these things if a client complained that they missed out because they declined a review without receiving sufficient information to decide whether to accept or decline a review.
Certainly, the bar is far far lower than those who sell compliance services and CPD would prefer us to fear.
The FMA's last several "big wins" have come from insurers and banks narking on themselves. Last being FMG. Otherwise it's all action around scam warnings. But they did catch Opes, so there's that - pretty much shooting a barn from inside!
How about the big dog - FADC. Currently 8 years and 5 months into a 5 year term, last FADC decision was handed down in march 2021. This was only the 10th case ever heard by FADC. This one was for breaches of Code standards 12 and 15. Details of who and what all remain suppressed, the adviser was "censured" (anonymously) as punishment. Enough to make me tremble slightly.
And then there's where the real action is. The DRS schemes. In this case, FSCL did not uphold the complaint. The adviser met whatever arbitrary standards FSCL decided to use, and found the complaint had insufficient merit. I tend to think this outcome supports my point more than Mr Wright's.
S431L? You mean the two lines that say one must exercise the care, diligence and skill of a "prudent person" ...?
That's the rub though, isnt it? There are those who hold themselves to be the most prudent of persons, the shining example, the standard that all should aspire to. And for however many $ I can be shown how too.
My point remains;
Our "conduct obligations" are dictated by the enforced regulations. The suggestions in the article speak to best practice. There is a significant difference between the minimum standards - where enforcement and compliance audits live - and "best practice".
Your framing of a review will go a long way to getting the clients buy-in for future reviews.
It needs value to be demonstrated and understood by the client or that classic radio station... WIIFM.
My personal view is that if you are collecting a trail for your product solution, you sure need to be able to prove you are doing as much as you can to encourage and take up reviews.
Sorry Steve, I know you mean well but respectfully I think advisers are getting a bit fatigued now from people telling us the sky might fall tomorrow because of a "what if" scenario much of which is just not based on common sense.
Aggressively_passive is correct. No DRS is going to side with a customer who elected not to engage with their adviser's earlier offer of a review of their cover. The adviser cannot be deemed not to have met his or her conduct obligations if the customer chooses not to engage with them in the review process. It won’t matter how much information the adviser had sent to their customer (obviously something appropriate) when they first recommended the review. BTW who decides what is considered “enough” information?
As this recent case with the son and mother has shown us there has to be on the customers part a measure of personal responsibility. Sadly, this character trait is increasing lacking in today’s modern society. If we reach a point where financial advisers become the scapegoat for customers own indifference to helping themselves then I don’t think many of us will choose to work in this industry anymore.
To use a personal responsibility example from a different industry it's like my GP saying to me recently that because of my age I should get a PSA test done within the next 3 months. My GP been a busy person hasn’t provided me with any pamphlet or website to view where I can read why a PSA test is important and I don’t expect to receive this additional information from them later. Nor do I expect a follow up phone call or email reminder from them. I have cancer in my family, and I know I should naturally follow my GPs advice now and have a PSA test done but I can also choose not to. That’s my choice as an adult. If I later developed prostate cancer because I was ignorant to what my GP had recommended am I going to try and make a complaint to the medical council for my own lack of personal responsibility? I’d be wasting my time. It’s the same thing also with the adviser channel for those customers declining their annual reviews.
We’ve seen FSCL come out just recently and acknowledge the lack of complaints been made annually against advisers now. No great revelation for advisers reading this news. Advisers are not the issue in terms of conduct complaints within the financial services industry. It’s the providers who are the problem as the stats clearly show us.
Sadly Insurance companies have not the moral compass to stop paying bad advisers for not servicing their clients even when a client has nominated a new adviser.
The time has come for insurance companies to transfer trail commissions to new servicing advisers and for advisers that have not been doing the servicing of clients to exit.
After re-entering the risk world after being absent for many years, I see the latter all too often. Whether it be education, servicing, or general care of clients. It would seem, for a large part of the industry, but not all, reaching for minimum entry levels and standards is far too onerous.
But as they say, the fish rots from the head down. What about the big end of town? For those poor souls that have their risk with banks, what level of servicing do they receive? I'm being mischievous here, as I know. I assisted a close friend's wife when her husband suddenly passed away far too young. The cover and type her husband had were simply appalling. I suspect there were no meaningful attempts of a review during the 20+ years they had the cover.
What about mortgages? When was the last time or frequency your bank or broker made an attempt to conduct a review? Banks have literally millions of mortgage clients. How are they treated? Whether it be by regulation or good practice. I think I know the response if I told the FMA I simply had too many clients.
There is certainly a fair amount of hypocrisy when it comes to the regulator's expectations of individual advisers and those of large institutions. They didn't get big for no good reason.
And as for my experience. The policies I wrote for my family and myself had long been sold. I hadn't received a single form of communication from the adviser for 20+ years until I decided to lapse one policy that was no longer needed. Then came the FAP regulations, and a new golden era of comms started in the form of an annual email. Poorly written, but comms all the same. But it had that "reaching for the minimum standards" feel about it.
So Steve, thank you for bringing this to our attention. It's always good to remind ourselves and challenge our thinking. Whether it's actually feasible to review every client annually is highly unlikely, but I get your point. There are many rungs on the ladder to looking after your clients, not just the first one.
When it comes to offering reviews I feel every client should be given an invite and the invite should be "a meaningful attempt" to connect. Not a passive templated email. A call in the first instance.
I agree that adviser fatigue from what are deemed industry experts interpretation on what advisers should do has become exhausting. At the same time I do agree with John that standards need to be high and maintained.
Unfortunately the experts are normally not practicing advice to clients and it is very easy to tell others how they should practice. If I was to take onboard some of their information a client first meeting would take 5 hours.
What is reasonable?
Not one client meeting will ever be exactly perfect. Clients will omit to provide information either accidently or as they felt is was not relevant.
I have started to filter "expert" opinions and especially the experts who sit on the sideline commentating having never been a player on the field where the rubber really hits the sky!
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A timely article however as far as a life adviser’s “conduct obligations” are concerned it’s the client’s own choice whether to accept the invitation from the adviser to complete the review. For the review process to work clients actually need to engage in the process itself. An adviser cannot control this unfortunately.
The adviser can and should provide their client with detailed reasons why the review process is so important and use many methods of communication to contact them i.e. phone call, email, physical letter, carrier pigeon etc. but the reality is that some clients will simply not respond for a myriad of reasons. The adviser having done the above has clearly met his/her conduct obligations. End of story.
I remember an old-time adviser telling me years ago he used to send his clients an envelope with nothing in it after the first offer of a review was communicated and ignored. Most would then call him to ask why he had sent them an envelope with nothing in it. His reply was the empty letter symbolised what they might get from their insurer potentially if a claim happened and their current level of cover wasn’t appropriate for their circumstances.