What’s happening at NEOS?
NEOS has seen a surge of business to kick off the new year and looking at IRESS recommendations, we’re sitting at number one in ACT and number two in NSW. We’ll look to have a few product updates in the second quarter of 2023 to ensure we maintain top quartile. We’re very excited to be working on the launch of the THIRD product on the NEOS Life Platform (watch out for important updates).
What’s happening in the market?
The QoAR keeps my optimism high, however I’m playing the wait and see game rather than jumping at shadows at this point. NEOS pushed for an increase in commissions to 90% upfront with a slight reduction in ongoing in our submission to Treasury; however, unfortunately this wasn’t recommended. We will continue to fight the good fight and push for what we believe in.
What advice trends am I seeing?
I was really hoping to see the market take a step in the right direction to kick off the year, however, recommendations are still trending down (-3% on this time last year), while premiums recommended seem to be up 19% in the month of January – including income protection premiums recommended which were down -30%.
There has been a bit of noise around five-year benefit periods; so what have your colleagues been doing? In NSW in 2021, five-year benefit periods made up 8.5% of recommendations. In 2022, this number increased to 13.63%. While there has been a slight uptick, to age 65 still dominates the market and made up 80.1% of recommendations in 2022. Want to know more about advice trends in Australia? Contact me to book a meeting.
Next holiday?
I mentioned towards the end of the 2022 that my fiancée Bianca and I were off to Bali in October (it was amazing, thank you for all your restaurant recommendations). We’re happy to say we’ve locked in a wedding destination in Uluwatu, Bali. We’ll be heading over again in June to finalise some wedding plans before we tie the knot at the end of September this year.
Thank you all for your support. If you ever have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know. We’d love to hear from you.
LET US KNOW HOW WE'RE DOING
We want to ensure we’re providing solutions to make advisers’ lives easier. So, if there’s anything you feel we could be doing better or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the NEOS Experience, please let us know.
While this edition of our newsletter has highlighted some of the great successes we’ve recently had, we’re not too proud to think that we can’t be better.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me as your State Manager or alternatively your BDM. We’d love to hear from you! And of course, positive feedback is also appreciated.