Ivon Gower

Midwinter Financial Services Pty Ltd (Midwinter) has announced an integration with myprosperity, a market leading client portal solution for financial advisers and accountants.

Advisers using Midwinter’s financial planning solution, AdviceOS, can now pull client data including personal details, entities, associates, relationships, assets, and liabilities from myprosperity into AdviceOS with the click of a button.

The combined power of myprosperity’s custom digital fact find solution, digital document signing and data syncing between the two systems will revolutionise the client experience and boost business efficiency.

Ivon Gower, Head of Product at Midwinter, welcomes the addition of myprosperity to Midwinter’s growing list of partnerships with leading specialist technology providers.

“We are committed to working with technology providers that enhance our offering to the financial advice industry,” said Gower.

“Our partnership with myprosperity supports this broader integration strategy designed to deliver increased value and efficiency to AdviceOS customers by integrating with the industry’s leading solutions.”

Enthusiastic about the partnership, Founder and Executive Director of myprosperity, Peter McCarthy, commented “The integration of our award-winning client portal with Midwinter’s AdviceOS will be a game-changer for progressive firms looking to leverage technology to grow their revenue, increase efficiencies and create a digital presence.”

“We have experienced significant growth in app downloads, digital doc signing, and in-app fact finds highlighting the demand from clients for more digital capabilities to meet their financial needs. Connecting myprosperity and AdviceOS is a win-win for Advisers and their clients.”

The myprosperity integration is available now, on request, to all AdviceOS customers.

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Peter McCarthy

Wealth management platform myprosperity has seen record quantities of debt recorded on its platform, up nearly 200% since the start of the year to $12 billion. There’s also been an estimated 80% increase in credit card accounts added to the platform since late 2019.

The myprosperity portal is used by advisers and households to track assets and liabilities so that better decisions can be made regarding a person’s entire wealth situation. The platform is used by more than 35,000 households in Australia.

“As Australia copes with this recession, many are turning to their accountant or financial adviser to find a way through these challenging times. The increase in liabilities recorded on the myprosperity platform, combined with climbing usage figures, demonstrates that there’s growing concern over managing debt. People are seeing the need to keep on top of their money during these tough times,” myprosperity founder Peter McCarthy said.

“For households, we’ve seen a significant spike in requests around assistance in financial management, retirement and estate planning, highlighting the increase in concern around financial health. These troubling times suggest people are looking for advice to help stem the loss and shore up their financial future.”

Tim Munro, Founder of Change Accountants said, “We support many business owners across varying sectors of the economy including the hospitality industry which has been smashed by the lockdowns. When COVID-19 hit, like many advisers, we were inundated with requests from clients seeking help with their finances, from applying for Jobkeeper and Jobseeker to drawing up weekly or monthly cashflows to help them get through. It’s been a really busy and challenging time. Technology has played a vital role in enabling us to engage with, and undertake reviews of many more clients than would otherwise have been possible in the traditional face-to-face world.”

As Australia headed into its first lockdown earlier this year, myprosperity experienced soaring usage of its platform as more advisers and accountants moved to work remotely.

myprosperity has again seen the usage of its platform increase as many Australians move to manage their wealth more closely and many advisers continue to work remotely. The use of online forms – or digital fact finds, tax checklists and onboarding forms – which help advisers digitise the engagement process by eradicating paper to streamline data collection, has increased by over 500% since December 2019.

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Daniel Smith

The delicate balancing act between delivering the specific health outcomes and sustainable funding of personal injury schemes is at a tipping point according to research from the Actuaries Institute, who surveyed delegates of its annual Injury Schemes Seminar held last month.

Building on 25 years of thought-leadership within the insurance and broader financial services industry, the Institute’s seminar facilitated challenging discussions around the complexities injury schemes need to navigate on a daily basis. These include supporting claimants towards optimal health and wellness outcomes, maximising scheme efficiency to better support the injured, adapting to an investment environment of lower returns and higher uncertainty, and meeting the funding and affordability requirements of stakeholders.

Delegates saw premium affordability [32%] followed by competition for carers, claims assessors and administration staff in other sectors [19%] as the main challenges surrounding the current role and operations of Australian injury schemes.

Daniel Smith, incoming president of the Actuaries Institute, said while the fiscal pressure versus health outcome scenario is a tough one to manage; each obstacle should be tackled head on.

“At the end of the day schemes needs to be fair, accessible and affordable to all Australians. However, balancing the provision of social justice with economic efficiency is no easy task and poses many challenging, often confronting issues.

“Despite the various pressures we need to embrace the step changes taking place via the various reviews and reforms such as the NDIS. Our role as actuaries is to provide an independent and holistic view of the various schemes and assess their financial sustainability,” he said.

Looking to the future, 38% of delegates believe a surge in claims as a result of an event or trend (e.g. stress claims) is the highest financial risk for personal injury schemes in the next five years. Indeed, almost half [43%] of those surveyed believe improved claims management is critical to ensuring the long-term funding viability of injury schemes.

Commenting on the findings, Peter McCarthy, chair of the Actuaries Institute’s general insurance practice committee, said:

“Most schemes and insurers are already investigating ways to improve their claims management processes such as increasing the capability of their staff, triaging of claims and focusing on health outcomes. However in some cases there is still a significant contrast in the quality of claims management practices and claims outcomes.

“While progress is being made in placing the focus more on individual health outcomes, the claims management process needs to be improved to ensure the ill or injured person does not become disempowered or suffer increased stress from the very process that is there to assist them,” he said.

NDIS – a major step forward but not without its challenges

Following the reviews and generational changes that have been implemented, over a third [35%] of those surveyed believe the best success metric for injury schemes will be a cultural and community change across Australia which creates a shift in the way society thinks about a person with an injury or disability.

The NDIS has changed the direction of Australian disability and injury schemes by effectively putting a new lens on the claims process, making the focus much more tailored around individual health needs and outcomes.

“While no one can deny the positive intent and purpose of the NDIS, recent reports that the scheme could cost billions of dollars more than expected highlight the significant financial risk that NDIS must successfully manage if it is to deliver on its promise to disabled Australians.  As a profession, actuaries are committed to assisting NDIS to navigate these risks utilising our detailed understanding of the key drivers of scheme costs and the associated uncertainty,” concluded Mr Smith.

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