One of the goals of the new rules is to improve confidence in the market; another is to increase access to advice for the New Zealand consumer.

I've talked about the privacy act and client information protection in the past, and it seems to fall on deaf ears.

Recently, I've seen some pushback from providers wanting their documents for authority purposes, which is painful.

My comments in my article on insurers not trusting advisers seem to have hit a chord. Not so much in comments but contact from providers.

A meme floating around says, "Integrity is doing the right thing; even when no-one is looking."

Some will look at my recent antics as akin to burning the place down. My response, if I have to!

There, I said it. I've been skirting this topic for a few months, and it's finally come to a head.

Continuing my journey in the weeds on existing business servicing; policy terms. More specifically, reviewing policy terms for existing clients.

You may have noted that I sometimes have a penchant for controversial comments. This isn't just to be contentious around the changes we have to deal with; it's to raise awareness of changes to how we are expected to work with the new rules.

The single biggest challenge with existing policies would be passbacks. 

One of the challenges we are all going to face is retiring. The recent regulation changes have put some focus on this for many and have resulted in accelerated retirement as a result.

I've had a client with a hard time with an accident injury, and they have little in the way of support.

It pays to be involved with clients at claim time and understand your policy wordings; I have been astounded over the years, despite product accreditation, about the number of advisers that just don't know their policy wordings. We need to do better.

Jon-Paul Hale picked apart the disclosure requirements for clients in his last article. But one thing that struck him, and a few colleagues, was one simple fact. When does a policy actually start?

We're heading into the final stretch where everyone should have their licensing and education requirements done; I'm not going to dwell on this, other than to say well done for getting it sorted and continuing your journey with this great industry!

Given that life advisers are now required to play both sides of the client relationship, which side prevails?