How astute must you be

Our reader wanted to know why Astute wasn't in a position to provide comprehensive information. There were two issues that we raised with Astute.

Firstly:  if the policyholder is somebody other than the client, the information does not reflect.  Why?  How can an advisor advise/do financial analysis for a client if they receive incomplete information from Astute? 

And what if the policyholder is as company/cc/trust?  One should be able to obtain this vital information irrespective as the client is after all the life insured.

Secondly our reader wanted to know why the investment information for Fairbairn/Galaxy Investments does not appear?

Our reader says that he has been embarrassed on several occasions, because he submitted an incomplete analysis to a client because the above information did not reflect on his Astute portfolio.

Angelo Hatzikyriacos, technology executive at Astute responds to some questions and issues raised by one of our readers.

In terms of the first point he says that Astute supplies product/portfolio information where the client is either the owner of the policy or life assured under the policy.

So for instance where the client is a beneficiary in a policy or only the payer of a policy, then no information is provided on that policy to a request using this client's details.

According to Hatzikyriacos this is because in terms of legal opinion, this particular client (beneficiary or payer) is not entitled to the policy information belonging to another client.

In the case where the client is a life assurer under the policy, then that benefit is important to the client for estate planning purposes, and hence the need to provide the information to that client.

Hatzikyriacos says that Astute became aware about a week ago that there was a problem with Discovery Life with regards to the life assured in that they weren't returning a portfolio under these circumstances.

A fix has been implemented and should have been live by the end of last week.

In terms of the Fairbairn/Galaxy products, Hatzikyriacos says that Old Mutual is currently not providing these products to Astute, as they are administered on different systems and the systems have not been integrated into the Astute system.

Old Mutual has indicated that these products will be provided to Astute in the future, once the systems have been changed.
 
Hatzikyriacos says that it's also important that the financial adviser checks the information obtained through Astute thoroughly and compares it to the previous portfolio schedule compiled for the client, as an extra measure to ensure that he goes to the client with accurate and complete information.

Editor's thoughts:
* It's indeed rare to find true customer service and promptness to boot. We found it with Astute. And before you go and make any assumptions - no we are not doing their marketing for them. Good client service acts as its own marketing voice.
* About the reason provided concerning Fairburn Galaxy and the lack of compatible systems, that one is a little more difficult to swallow.