TAL launches grief support training course for advisers

TAL, a leading Australian life insurance specialist, is running a training course to help financial advisers understand and support their customers who may be suffering from grief.

Run through TAL’s industry leading product-agnostic Risk Academy, the ‘Supporting Grieving Clients Course’ is run by Glenn Baird, TAL Head of Mental Health. Glenn currently leads TAL’s mental health strategy and he has more than 14 years’ experience as a qualified psychotherapist, facilitator and trainer.

TAL Head of Licensees and Partnerships, Beau Riley, said the course was developed to help advisers gain a greater understanding of the support they can provide customers who may be suffering from grief as well as knowledge on other resources advisers can draw on when their customers need additional help.

“Under the new adviser education requirements, financial advisers have increased requirements to obtain continuous professional development (CPD) hours across various FASEA areas, one of which is Client Care and Practice. While current education options traditionally offer a lot of course content in the technical space, there is a need for more support in the soft skills space.

“Very little training is available to equip advisers to have the right conversations when their customers are suffering from grief. Feedback from advisers tells us that this is the most important area they need to get right to effectively support their customers and that having these skills can be a real differentiator.

“Through TAL Risk Academy, we aim to provide easily accessible resources that advisers can use to develop skills such as improving empathy, recognising grief symptoms and responding to grieving people. These are core soft skills that advisers can embrace to help their customers when they need them most,” said Mr Riley.

Financial adviser Nathan McCullum is an advocate for more advisers to complete training in this space. Mr McCullum completed the Accidental Counsellor course last year through Lifeline Northern Beaches and has found value in the training to improve his ability to deal with difficult customer conversations.

“I encourage other financial advisers to do more training in this space, particularly young advisers. Many advisers may not be aware of their responsibility to get these conversations right, but advisers have a key role to play in providing trusted support to our customers.

“Advisers often operate small practices and they just don’t have the resources to draw on to gain these skills. It’s good to see TAL providing more education in this space,” said Mr McCullum.

The course is available on-demand and is free to attend with one CPD hour available. To enrol in the course or find out more information, visit: https://risk-academy.csod.com/client/risk-academy/.