She attributes the increasing level of claims to regulations such as CLERP and Policy Statement 146 that contained increased training requirements.

"Stress and change bring on mental ill health," she told delegates at the Society of Independent Financial Advisers conference in Wellington last week. The statistics are quite horrifying, and she says getting much worse.

In Australia there has been an eight-fold increase in the claims by financial advisers in the period from July 2002 to June 2003.

She says there has been a four-fold increase in psychological claims across all occupations, however financial advisers were the worst off in the group.

She says there are eight times more financial advisers coming on claim from depression and anxiety than the average.

The stress advisers are under "is a serious problem," she says.

What's more male advisers are more likely to suffer than female ones.

Black warns that if the government in New Zealand toughens up the regulatory environment then the same sort of situation could occur here.

ING employs Black as a rehabilitation consultant specifically to help get advisers back to work.

She says the cost of these claims to ING is in the order of A$10.2 million and the cost to the financial advisers is A$800,000.

Consequently advisers as a group are seeing their premium rates increase substantially.

Black says advisers need to be aware of any changes coming and their impact. They need to plan and prepare for them.