ailo writes to two meps in fight to change regs

By Mark Battersby, 8 May 13

The Association of International Life Offices has written to two members of the European Parliament in a new salvo to get life products treated differently from investment funds, while also acknowledging that it faces an “uphill struggle” in getting this message across.

Alan Morgan-Moodie, AILO’s chief executive wrote to Madame Berès MEP in response to her report on the Packaged Retail Investment Products (PRIPs) proposal asking for the exclusion of purely protection contracts with no surrender value.

Speaking to International Adviser, Alan Morgan-Moodie, AILO’s chief executive, said the cross border industry has made a very good case that life insurance is a very different sort of vehicle to investment products, but that “we’ve got a bit of an uphill struggle” in changing the proposed Key Investor Information Document (KID).

The simplified KID disclosure forms for a range of products, including life savings products and unit trusts, do not allow for the costs of mortality and other features that make the life products look very expensive, Morgan-Moodie said.

He does not think the PRIPs regulations will come into force until 2014 as “it is not high on the Irish Presidency’s priorities. They are far more concerned with the banking directive and I hear that the savings directive is back on track and may be completed in the summer.”

In a second letter, John Beaney, AILO’s legal & regulatory executive, wrote to Werner Langen MEP that with the Insurance Mediation Directive (IMD2) proposal, “there should be a requirement for professional knowledge and qualifications to be commensurate with the complexity of the insurance products being advised upon, as a pan-European qualification for advisers will be difficult to implement”.

The letter also reiterated AILO’s concerns over the proposal to ban remuneration of independent financial advisers by means of commission from insurance providers, which “AILO believes would bring customer detriment, as it would greatly reduce the availability of independent advice”.

Independent adviser Michael Lodhi, chief executive of the Spectrum IFA Group and vice chairman of FEIFA, said in response to the letters: “I fully support AILO’s views and initiative on these issues. It provides very useful insight for politicians and regulators which should allow them to make decisions that can actually work in practice for the benefit of both consumers and the industry as a whole.”