Show Notes
A cheap premium in year one can feel like a win. Until you look a few years down the track and realise the price has quietly crept up.
Durational discounting has changed how life insurance is priced, recommended and kept in force. Big upfront discounts make policies easy to sell, but they also build in a loyalty tax that hits clients who do the right thing and stick around.
Phil and Trent talk through why this has become normal practice, how it distorts stepped premiums, and the uncomfortable pressure it puts on advisers to rewrite policies just to stay competitive. It is an industry habit that sounds harmless, but it reshapes trust, sustainability and long-term value in ways we do not talk about enough. If you work in risk advice, this one will feel very familiar.
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Every week, Phil and Trent dig into the My Risk Adviser Facebook group to pull out the most interesting questions and debates from real risk advisers dealing with real problems.
Zurich’s pricing changes are being framed as aggressive, but from an actuarial lens, they’re a response to worsening pool dynamics. Duration-based discounting pulls forward profitability, while lapse-supported pricing assumptions break down when persistency improves among higher-risk cohorts. The result is predictable. Loss ratios expand and repricing follows.
Most advisers aren’t short on CPD. They’re just not capturing what’s already happening.