AMP, Centrepoint Alliance and Fortnum Financial Advisers have all changed their commission models after the Trowbridge Report slammed Australian risk advisers' remuneration structures, which it said were leading to conflicts of interest.

Fortnum last week announced it would adopt a fee-for-service model in what it said was an effort to “self-regulate and ward off further legislative attack”.

Allan Rickerby, of Super Advice Services, said changes would have to happen in New Zealand, too. “The reality is it is going to change. It is too high. We will see it happening over here. Unfortunately some of the aggregator businesses only get paid for new business and they encourage rewriting the business after a couple of years. But it is unfair on the insurer and everyone else.”

Fortnum said the insurers were not blameless and that most knew who the advisers were who were “churning” business.

Rickerby said the same thing could be said in New Zealand. He said insurers turned a blind eye until their own book started being rewritten.

But David Whyte, former AIA general manager and managing director of AIG Life in Australia, said there had been no decisive data delivered to show that churn was a problem in Australia or New Zealand.

He said the number of files reviewed for the Trowbridge Report was too small to draw any decisive conclusions.

“Without empirical evidence on churning you’re left with nothing more than speculation assertions that commission creations conflicts of interest. I would suggest replacement business figures need more robust attention.”

He said companies’ growth rates needed to be compared to the industry average and investigations made to determine how much of the difference was replacement business.

He said questions also needed to be asked about how many applications with replacement of business forms attached were declined because the reasons given for a replacement were inappropriate.