#283 Kris Mason – Transcript

Andrew Rocks
Hello, welcome to x y podcast today I have the privilege of interviewing Kris Mason, Chris unique kind of a guy and he comes across quite lackadaisical, and you’ll really enjoy listening to him he sees his stories is, is a good one. And I have a feeling that he’s got more in front of him than what he’s got behind him. So Kris Mason, welcome to the xy podcast.

Kris Mason
Thanks for having me, Rocksy, pleasure to be here.

Andrew Rocks
That’s right. And book as as is tradition with x y podcast. We want to get our listeners to learn a little bit about yourself. And so the big question is, you know, why did you get into financial advice? And where did you come from bit of your backstory?

Kris Mason
Yes. Thanks Rocksy. Country boy, right like yourself. So I grew up in between Wellington imagi, Central West, came to boarding school at Riverview in year six. And I’ve been essentially in Sydney. Ever since how I got into the planning, I was always pretty sporty back in the school days and had one of the one of the greatest careers advisors ever, which is a good story. So I must tell it as I remember sitting with her in year 12 review, Chris, what do you want to do? I said, I’m pretty sporty. And I think I’ll be a PE teacher. And she goes, Oh, yeah, that’s great. And she goes, she said to me, sweetie, do you want to live? I’m not sure no brainer. That’s where I’m at. Yeah, so my school buddies are and she goes, You have you got kids? What do you want to do education wise? And I said, I’ve got boys. I’ve got a review girls. Yeah, Lorello one of the other private schools. Absolutely no brainer. And she goes, Well, you won’t do that being a PE teacher. I’m just giving you the heads up right now as he said, maybe, maybe if you love your sport, when he keep playing your sport and get into the into the business world. So I thought that was very sound advice. And then so I played a lot of cricket during my school days and ended up with one of my cricket coaches back in high school they sent me you’re a personal guide when you finish up. If you don’t have some time off before you study, why don’t you come and work for me and he happened to be a mortgage broker for Dino, well, Roxy, so anyway, first year out of school, I’m kind of he’s apprentice mortgage broker guide trailing him around. And this is where I think actually learned a lot of soft skills, probably that that sort of be in good stead moving forward. I was yeah, I didn’t know half and I’m doing that mom and dad mortgage, writing appointments at night and all the rest of it. He was a very good, good broker, but very good salesman as well. So I learned a lot of a lot of skills from him. Over the years, I did mortgage broking for a while then ended up in a financial holistic financial planning practice. And can I ask where was that at Chris? That was it. So the mortgage broking firm was added chatroom, advanced residential mortgages and then

Andrew Rocks
shout out advance residential mortgages. Yeah, your first failed mortgage broker, life insurance icon. Yeah. So

Kris Mason
they went across the talebearer. And he was one of the original shed force firms really good financial planning practice. Chris Taylor was the principal there at the time, bright guy, that holistic one stop shop. And I was I see that being house mortgage business, swinging off the back of the seven or eight planners and property and everything else I did. And while I happened to be there, believe it or not, the guy was running the in house insurance happened to die. And the principal came to me and said, Chris, you’re doing all the debt work that the insurance goes hand in hand. It’s yeah. Why don’t you have a crack at that’s pretty easy. I’ll get one of the good good lbmc Come out and teach you and all the rest of it. So I started doing jewel rolls. And then it got to the point where I had to choose one or the other and I thought, Oh, this insurance stuff isn’t bad. So that’s how I ended up in the insurance stuff. As a profession initially, so kind of more fell into it, which I’m assuming a lot of people did in the insurance space.

Andrew Rocks
And the teacher or the careers advisor. can remember the person’s name. Yeah, Mrs. Agnew. This is acne. So if you’re listening Mrs. Agnew, we’re going to very wide audience. Chris still has quite a lot of PE teachers shorts, that he that he sports.

Kris Mason
still frustrated PE teacher

Andrew Rocks
So, you’ve, you’ve gone from mortgages, and yeah, tell me the, you know, that the life insurance person literally died and and you then took over those clients straightaway, is that right? Tell me about how that then, you know formed how you thought about this profession? Yeah. Well,

Kris Mason
I suppose that was a wake up call saying someone Yeah. And then staff member fellow staff member dies one and then it validated the value of life insurance advice and then got into it from there and yeah, that’s pretty well it.

Andrew Rocks
And when did you so at that stage you’re working in a team? Yep. And were you were you running a team of life insurance riders? Or was it specifically yourself? And what roughly premium? What year was that?

Kris Mason
So that would have been around 2000? I think that would have been Yeah, yeah, a bit before nine out. So I would have been there for three or four years. And then essentially, it got to the point where I brought in some referral sources. That’s fine. Yeah, some other finance brokers, referring insurance to me and a couple of accountants and whatever you want to get to the point with the principle of bang, where I kind of said, I want some equity, or I’ll go and do this myself. And that we couldn’t come to agreeable terms. So then I started up Mason insurance consulting from there.

Andrew Rocks
Right. Okay. There’s, there’s a bit of a lesson there. And that that same conversation gets heard over and over and over again. And maybe towards the end of this, we might, I might ask their question of how you now on the other side of the fence, how you’re bringing people through in your business, whether it be equity or whatnot. So at the start at that time there with the the life insurance sort of landscape. Did you look after? Did you? Were you involved with lots of life insurance companies? Or did you sort of have a sort of a narrow range?

Kris Mason
I think I would have been using Yeah, like four or five of them. So it was a it was an open architecture model. Yeah, essentially was Yeah. And I went so one of the one of the planners to give you a bit of backstory on that had just gone out before me and he’d done the whole dealership thing. And as you said, um, I can be reasonably relaxed with the seasons. I’m thinking, you know, insurance, I don’t need to hate out of my dealer group, know, huge amounts of research and know my risk research and all the rest of it for the ratings. So he just gone out to Lonsdale. I thought he’s a very detail guy, this guy, he’s done his homework. If one sounds good for him, I’ll get Yeah, I’ll get authorized for that. This one, I went out as a one man band just operating out of a spare room in my apartment at the time. So I hooked up with one side which ended up kind of framing up the direction of the business in in some ways happy to go on. I’ve gone off on a no, no, it’s so Lonsdale was a dealer group that specialized in authorizing accountants that wanted to do essentially self managed Superfund advice work or just be authorized essentially. So I kind of ended up with Lonzo Lanzarote since Academy. So we’ve got all these accounting firms. We’ve authorized them all but none of them are really gave me the insurance stuff. So they ran the line with all their accounting firm saying you’ve got this insurance is important, a compliance piece. He clients needed it, you’ve either got to do it yourself, which is a fair bit to it, or we’ve got a risk specialist. Yeah. Chris Mason, that’s all he does. Why don’t you start referring to him. And that’s, that’s where I started dealing with, I suppose b2b stuff with accounting firms, which is really what we’ve got to expand it out on.

Andrew Rocks
And I’d like to drill down on that one, because building relationships with accountants is a story that just sort of goes round and round and round. And I like them the way in which you’ve dealt with accounts over years to sort of cracking the Rosetta Stone, you somehow speak enough of their language, that they’re willing to give you that that trust and the business it flows. So maybe if you could give your listeners a bit of an idea of how you’ve how you cracked personally, the accountant sort of mindset, and just some tips on how you did that. Yeah,

Kris Mason
I think with accountants one thing for us, because we were b2b, our services always had to be top shelf and in line with the accounting firm itself. So one thing I’ve always had the, in the back of my head that we rarely have to step up one client or do the wrong thing by a client, I’ll get sloppy service wise, and we’ll lose that whole account. So I suppose our service is always been of high end from a professional side of things, the reporting back to them, keeping them in the loop, not overselling clients or any of that type of stuff, just having a more accounting structured approach, as I said, with feedback, and yeah, I think all advisors now as we’ve grown know that they’ll have to do the wrong thing. But one client or Mike got the advice and that’s you’ve got whole relationship at stake. So I think that always set us up to be Yeah, there have to be really rock solid with our service. And as I said, reporting, we’re heavy back to the accounting firms. I think accountants deep down yeah, they’re managing risk. Yeah. Whether it be business risk. Yeah, they’re talking structures around the gills. Yeah. So whether it be by sales or personal insurance is very much kind of in their in their wheelhouse.

Andrew Rocks
I think that’s it. A wonderful sort of statement, the fact that they’re managing risk. There’s too many financial planners, I suppose, coming into the conversation with accountants with a bit of prejudice around, they’re looking backwards and looking forwards. But the reality is, you’re right there, they’re managing risks. And life insurance is another risk that can be hedged for a cost the accountants sort of control. So as far as the volume of accounting firms, where did you get to? And how did you manage all of these these people whilst giving, you know, a class feedback and continuity? How did you do that? Without sort of dropping the ball as you, as you suggest? Yeah, well,

Kris Mason
we’ve just gradually built it up. Yeah, we’ve been at it for 20 odd years now. And we’ll continue to kind of scale over time. So yeah, I think probably with a lot of businesses in the in the planning space, you tend to do the b2b work with businesses that are more in line with your scale. So as we’re small, there’s a lot of 1234 partner accounting firms that will be referring work as we’ve got bigger, it’s moved into the, you know, the pitcher partners and HLB, man jobs and stuff like that. And we’ve, we’ve always just ensured we’ve had the scale to do it. And look, accountants don’t refer a million people every day, that’s generally the relationships you’ve, you’ve got time to build in them that takes time to get to get to know the relevant partners of the firm or what the client facing people and yet and you know, we’ve always been able to manage that problem.

Andrew Rocks
Did you find that accountants like there’s there’s quite a broad spectrum of life insurance solutions out there? Was there kind of products or strategies that accountants were just completely blind to that almost every time you’re referred? You went? Oh, here’s another blind spot?

Kris Mason
Look, I think for us, it’s always I know that blind spots but a big part of our role once we engage in accounting firm or they speak to us about providing service to their clients is the internal education piece. So we spent a lot of time internally with the accountants and tailor the training to the to the different areas I’m a big believer in in referred to with any centers of influence or referral sources that your product has to be in the right with there’s to a certain degree that makes the referral so much more stickier. So with mortgage brokers like the business, you’re in Roxy, that debt and insurance goes hand in hand. That’s it’s a natural conversation to have accountants are always if they’re not dealing. Yeah. Like you look at a pitch partners, big SMA client base. Yeah. Hey, business advisory accounts. Now. They’re not raising, buy, sell insurance, and all the rest of it, when they’re talking about managing the risk of that business. In my view, they’re not doing their job. And I’m happy to tell them that like you can’t be dealing with a $10 million practice with three partners. Yeah, yes, you might have the trust in place everything else. But if you haven’t tabled the fact that what are you going to do if one of those partners dies a unit of funding that’s, that’s going to be an issue. So so we do relevant training. So might be the planners might be dealing with more personal insurance stuff, you know, what, what insurance are they losing when they’re going down, self managed Superfund. So we’ll make our internal training very relevant to theirs will then try and overlap that with some marketing to make sure their clients are well aware that this is an additional service offering for their clients, I suppose their philosophy, Rocky has always been whatever firm we’re dealing with, we want to we want to be a really strong reflection on their service offering to the point where a lot of our accounting partners or joint venture partners, it’s white label, so picture partners, Insurance Services, essentially asked sellers, HLB, Mann, Judd. So it’s, from their clients perspective, their game, this is great. This is another kind of interrelated services that my family will get after forming.

Andrew Rocks
And grew up. You know, from from the Genesis, you’ve always been a specialist. So when you made the move into life insurance, did you ever do any overall or holistic planning sort of superannuation at all? Or have you always stayed very narrow, focused?

Kris Mason
No, what was been narrowed focus? And I’ll always kind of maintain that, well, I was probably stupid to be a plan or get my head around everything. I thought if I can learn the insurance stuff, they still

Andrew Rocks
recording, Chris.

Kris Mason
But it also has been a real string to our bow, because we’re not competing with any of these firms in other areas. So I think for us the fact that they can deal with us and there’s no conflict, we’re not doing anything else that they may be doing on the side as well. Because, yeah, as you would know, most accounting firms have got a well farm, they might have some type of mortgage broking set up in house or what have you. So it’s always been it’s always helped us, I think. And when it comes to life

Andrew Rocks
insurance more broadly, I know that you you could ask a lot of your opinion from the product providers and and building it out. And just generally, because there will be some some some providers that are listening to this. Where do you think they’re going right, in 2022? And where do you think they’re still going wrong? As far as what they’re offering up?

Kris Mason
I think I look. Insurers think yeah, it’s been a bit of a vicious circle fire with the whole pricing, instability and all the rest of it. And we’re just saying now, thanks. Yeah, the birth of more flatter pricing more sustainable pricing structures, which is, I think the way we need to go and commissions, obviously now, if I drill down into our practice, there’s no money in in the onboarding of the client, the money is in the recurring income as I could I

Andrew Rocks
stop you there. There’s so with. So what you’re saying is now with live having played out, and the maximum level that you can take it from being 60%, you’ve just That’s nearly almost entirely your cost of goods to acquire the client. Is that

Kris Mason
correct? Yep. Yep, so by the time by the time we’ve underwritten a client, a new client and pay the advisor and everything else, it’s it’s pretty well, breakeven for us. Yeah. So I think that the birth of the flatter premium structures, and we’ve got a few of our own tailored products that we’ve worked directly with the insurance to make sure, yeah, we’ve kind of said, We don’t want the massive view on discounts, and then deal with a client that’s dealing with a 30% increase every year. So we’ve taken that upon ourselves, obviously, we’ve got good scars, so we can have those conversations with the insurance, I think that’s, that’s a better result for the client. Clients don’t want this kind of bill shock in year 2345. They don’t want to Yeah, they want to run the risk of having to hopefully be re underwritten down the track, when when the market demands that they’re going to have to be re brokered somewhere else. And we, to be honest, I want to do it as a as a business a that we’d prefer to be able to set and forget the client at a product level and just make the appropriate adjustments to the client’s level of cover as their needs.

Andrew Rocks
So I’d normally like to sort of wait to the end to talk about that, but I’m going to go down that rabbit hole. So you’ve you’ve obviously you’ve identified the issue that we all we all know that as you refer to the bill shock, is no fun. And if if if the upfront Commission’s really is the cost of acquisition, you really want that client to have that policy for as long as as is practical and relevant. Have you so you’ve been thinking about this for a while? And have you rolled it out to somebody talking about at the moment? Now? We’ve just rolled it out? Yes. Automation? Yeah. Can you mention who that’s with? Or is it companies? The

Kris Mason
insurer? Yeah, yeah. So we’ve, we’ve done it with Zurich? We’ve done it. Yep. And we’ve also done some work with MetLife. Around product as well.

Andrew Rocks
Well done. Well done. And, um, I suppose before we go on, there’s probably a few people out there before you jump on the phone to both of those companies. Maybe Chris, if you could just give us an idea of the scale of the business you’re in now. And I suppose why those people have done that just as a headline.

Kris Mason
Yeah. So we, I mean, it’s, there’s a fair bit of work went into it. With both product providers in in as much as I looked at our book of business, they looked at our lapse rates. So to give you an overview of the book, it’s about 100 million pre money management, we’ve got a better lapse rate than market and others. And so our whole kind of thinking around it was we don’t really want to play in the pool of all this repricing, which is linked to poorer performing distribution nouns, whether it be group or aligned products or advisors, other advisors or what have you. We knew the experience of our book was, was really good, strong, which we thought yeah, if we if we have a one on one with insurer get the actuaries to crunch all the numbers, we could get a much better longer term flatter structure and the pricing based on

Andrew Rocks
so what you’re saying is, if you’re swimming in a pool, you don’t about the shallow end with the blue dye. Yes, that’s exactly right. Yeah, whatever the other end where it’s crisp and works for everyone,

Kris Mason
because we know that the outcome is really it’s a it’s a much better book. Yeah, higher premiums, staying on for longer, all the rest of it. So we wanted our clients to get the benefits of that.

Andrew Rocks
And so that’s what you’re doing. You know, the question I asked is, What are you insurers doing? Well, and what are they doing poorly and didn’t really answer either of them? You just sort of said What have we done to make things better? Yeah. Where do you still think that they lack the insurance companies in dealing with advisors? Not necessarily that the beta, say staff, which everyone knows about, but where do you think that they could improve?

Kris Mason
My personal experience with insurance companies, Roxy, over the years has always been great. We’ve always had it. Yeah, we’re in business with these guys. We’ve always worked closely with them. Yeah, they’ve been very good to us in a number of ways, as we’ve grown over the years and stuff as well. And yeah, my I’m a firm believer in business, everyone’s got to make $1. So they’ve got to Yeah, they’ve got to do well, their returns have not been great. They’ve been hammered. But so I think look, they’re doing everything I can their biggest issue at the moment is, ya know, a lot of distribution in the market. That’s the that’s the biggest problem. And that’s that’s been a result of obviously, the Royal Commission. Things have not fared around, but that that will come back.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah, well, people are. People are injecting themselves at record levels. So life insurance has never been more greatly needed an aging population.

Kris Mason
Yeah. And I think just sorry, on that previous question as well. I mean, engineers get hammered a lot for discounting products and being unsustainable, but if they don’t discount they don’t get the new business. which is driven by the advisors. So I think there’s a bit of accountability on on both sides.

Andrew Rocks
And I think what you said you very much to approach them in a partnership kind of model, that you can do that with the scale. But you always did that, even when you didn’t have scale, you always took a little bit of extra time dealing with, you know, working with the life insurance companies listening to them. Whereas, you know, it’s very easy to dismiss the life insurance PDM coming out just another BDM. But I know from from memory that you did take a lot of time you really pick their brains and very much say you’d like to ingratiate yourself in that process. Would that be a fair statement?

Kris Mason
Yeah. Without doubt, yeah, we’ve always seen them as partners, as I said, a lot of the insurers that the the likes of towel, and I and Zurich have been really good to us as a business over the years. They’ve helped us in a lot of areas. And and yeah, we like to think it’s a two way street. It was a we have a good honest relationship with them. And we work through stuff and that and that’s the way it should, but it hasn’t been enough of it. You know, it’s always been geysers against insurers. And that’s not healthy. In my view, largely anyway, that’s not a healthy way to run your business. And and yeah, we’re understanding of the issues they’ve had as well.

Andrew Rocks
So maybe having a little bit of a think about, yeah, the clients. So I’m lucky enough to know you personally. And for a while there, your your eldest son, who’s now almost an adult, used to say, I don’t know what dad does, but I think he just gives people money, a bag of money when they need it. So on that, if you’ve got a couple of, sort of stories that, that stick with you from the coalface of clients, and when when something’s really worked, or something that was really valuable that you’d like to share?

Kris Mason
Yeah, I think insurance it’s very easy to sell until Yeah, they’re I suppose the penny drops when you get a big claim on the work colleague die. And then I actually had one of my first clients I still still remember that went out and saw it was very senior at worst. So big job, had big debt. Abortion was a huge insurance policy, I think it was, and this was going back this these I know what I needed $6 million life cover Max IP. So he this guy got put through the wringer medically and super fit ran the house down was running 20 cars a day, all the rest of it. And then about four months later, it was asbestos cancer and died like two months after that. So for me when you say big claims are the impact on the family and young kids and all the rest of it, and for a guy that I would never predicted the heaven health. Yeah, a major health event like that. And that that was I suppose that’s what really validates what we do as insurance advisors without without question. Yeah. So that that was probably one that second one. And probably Fortunately, that was really early on in the piece. And I think, you know, I’ve seen it internally with us, we haven’t got 20 Plus brokers at the moment, and some of them probably have never had a serious claim. So until I get that, I think that once I do get that, and I and I say the impact on the family or the business or whatever it is, though. Yeah, that’s when they’ll get a true appreciation for the for the real value they’re bringing, as opposed to issuing a piece of paper that saying it’s gonna do something something goes wrong.

Andrew Rocks
Yeah. So you can put the correct I mean, the life insurance industry isn’t just selling a piece of actuarial instruments. It’s what happens when there’s a claimant. And there are some claims that, sadly, are easy, easy to validate with a death certificate, but there are other claims that are more interpretive. What is it that you do or your business does on the claim side? And how would you recommend people who are maybe new into life insurance, or they don’t do it all the time, in fact, the most recent survey is that only 12% of people now call themselves life insurance advisors, which is defined by sort of 40% or more of their revenue. So what is it that that you do come claim time and a couple of tips that you could give people to assist with clients?

Kris Mason
Look, I think again, with claims and just going back to what we’re talking about before it just work closely with the insurers of the insurers Yeah, we’ve had I think one claim over a long period of time with a with a massive but not paid and that was just blatant non disclosure, I go into those details but the clients managers you just work with them and that they’ll we’ve found you as they’ll go out of their way to help you so that would be my best advice would be if you if you’re a bit nervous about I haven’t done much of it get get your BDM to bring them the head of claims out and have a chat to them make sure you’ve got their name and number so if there’s ever an issue jump on the phone that’s I’ve never been afraid to reach out in in any area of business to get advice or help in any of those areas and insurers will bend over backwards so that we all know they’re very well resourced internally so just ask for help and don’t think that it’s it’s you against them at the event. Have a climb, most of them will go out of their way to make sure that clients paid quickly and efficiently as soon as they’ve got the relevant information. So I certainly wouldn’t have any hang ups over whether they will or won’t pay, it’s pretty clear cut in our game, whether someone qualifies for a claim or doesn’t. So that would be my advice to them.

Andrew Rocks
I had a great chat with Dan Blach a couple of weeks ago, and his advice is very similar, which is, you know, get as close as you can to, to their, their assessment team, get them out trying to learn, you know, and at the end of the day, be willing be willing to come to the table and do what it takes to get the claim done for the client is, as you say, it’s not it’s ludicrous to think that the people who are standing between you and a checker are the enemy. I think the sooner you work with them, the better we are, when you because you are a life insurance sort of specialist team. And, you know, if I look at if I look at the first year, it’s very much, you know, you have to learn everything. How has that impacted you guys the last couple of years, given that you’ve probably never rolled a superannuation over or done any of those sorts of things? And did you find it frustrating? Or is just another thing to to get rolling? Yamo

Kris Mason
I think there’s an element of frustration that of course, when you Yeah, when when they want you to do study that and this puts in perspective. Well, Roxy, as you know, I’m married to a cardiologist doctor and I remember coming home one night Wenjing that he never leaves. I’ll get it do all this additional study of which I’ve never done a lot in the past, you know, got to do six or seven subjects and she goes, are you buddy kidding? only deal with all I deal with now it’s hard. You know how much study I had to do before I got to that in the general medicine. It hit me across everything. So like, it was like roll your eyes and get I thought is that’s sort of a wake up call. So yeah, look, we’ve always I think, you know, and I think it’s where a lot of business went wrong Royal Commission for us was okay, it was a line in the sand. We had to make changes. And for us, we accepted and just got on with it. And I think yeah, to be honest, yeah. And send it to him and stuff would love to hear this probably were a better business for it. We didn’t we didn’t sit there winning throwing stones sitting in neutral, we thought okay, the couple of areas that we’re gonna have to improve on cup have changed after we made and we just just got on with it and we were surging. I like to say we’re like the salmon mobile has been we’ve been swimming, it’s a strain the last four or five years, you’ve had distribution going backwards. And we’ve been going forwards at a rapid rate or not. So we haven’t let we’re pretty good. Yeah, it’s a youngish business as well. So it was more just it is what it is, let’s just get on with less control. The controllables is a big mantra for us. And I think that’s the, you know, the industry, as you would know, have suffered massively from people just pitching and learning for years about all this change. So which one of which I think was probably wired at Yahoo. If I look at the industry now it’s it’s it’s a better better industry than it was probably prior to the changes. Yeah. I don’t necessarily agree with the hype of people having to get out because like, the study down, but I think it will, it will come through this and come come out the other side.

Andrew Rocks
I just got I just got a double thumbs up emoji from Jamie Hume, as you were talking, Chris, which is probably the more one of the more pleasant text messages in camera for the last two weeks. Yes. So what you mentioned, you know, when I asked for an example, you mentioned the six meals or what what’s been the largest payout, and that if you’ve been involved in

Kris Mason
not that much farther, I think we had about a $9 million individual case was the highest one we paid out.

Andrew Rocks
And I know that you’re a big advocate of trauma, insurance and making sure that that it’s working. Is there any so with the future of trauma insurance and, you know, being married to a cardiologist? It’s one of the big four, four reasons why, why why from my traumas there, but there’s all these other facets of with mental health and whatnot. Where do you see the products moving towards?

Kris Mason
Yeah, that’s just random and obviously just watered down income protection a bit. They’ve made that yeah, if you look at the detail, pretty difficult for self employed people around justifying income, whatever. So I’m a massive trauma advocate. And that’s largely based on we pay out more in trauma claims, then it goes by fairway so I’m saying payouts all the time and and meaningful payouts, young people are getting decent chunks of money for serious illness as opposed to Yeah, I think in the in the modern day people get back on their feet pretty quickly as well. You have something serious your standard or it’s key hell and you know, if you’re getting through a 90 day wait on your income protection these days, you’re pretty crook, but it’s just a balancing it’s a case by case study, I think yeah, self employed people or whatever. Yeah, to me, traumas, probably the best way to go. Income Protection is obviously important for the paye people, whatever, but it’s always like, case by case. So it’s just balancing out the right portfolio for the for the individuals or the business or whatever it is.

Andrew Rocks
So you’ve now got you mentioned your you’ve surrounded yourself with capable people. I think that’s a common theme. You also mentioned you grew up in the country. You did you get a big score. Was it small? And were you ducks in that school? And do I know the answer already?

Kris Mason
Yes, I was correct. And how many people were in your phone, one other one other in my year at Spicers. Creek public school.

Andrew Rocks
Okay. So I just wanted to get their question on the record. You know, running a business and sort of getting to the scale you’re at, technology must play a part. You know, you were very firm on the reason why accountants dealt with you and partners dealt with you was that you gave good feedback, and that you kept them involved. Maybe what have you used in order to give feedback this specifically for b2b b2b? Because that’s sort of your superpower? And where do you see that going? And what are you guys doing currently?

Kris Mason
So where are we with Salesforce at the moment is our CRM VPP is our back office which you know very well, they help us offshore? And and we’ve got a very good internal team. I mean, I think for us, there’s there’s been no magic wands on the on the IT staff yet that’s getting worked on, through Bombora, the dealer group at the moment, and then just good people is, is the key and using obviously resources like offshore and what have you, as well. But yeah, one of the keys to NBS doing well is the caliber of people of blood in there.

Andrew Rocks
And maybe take me through. Look, I wholeheartedly agree. If you get people in strategy, then execution and cash come. So take me through how you’ve, you’ve come to build MBs and, and the key people in it and, and when I google MBSA, always get all the articles come up, which are fundamentally this inflection point around 2015 16, where you made some decisions. So maybe take me through the team and how you build them. And maybe how you build your life insurance? Do you do have pods of a state based or just give us a feel for how you’re managing that? Because that’s, that’s unique in our industry?

Kris Mason
Yeah. It’s a big question, Roxy, but I’ll try and break it down. So yeah, I mean, MBs, it was myself initially, then I had a couple of guys work for me. And I suppose back to right at the start of this chat, we’re talking about me not being able to get equity in the firm I was with before, I never wanted to make that mistake, I was happy to be a smaller part of a bigger pie. So I had always to this day continuing to lock in good people with equity, because life insurance is a big equity based business as well. So I think if you if you have clued up in life insurance, and you don’t want a piece of the underlying value, there’s probably a bit of a issue there because that’s where a lot of it, a lot of the value sits but so we’ve always had Yeah, had some good people really good people involved, but I drew Byrne, who you know, is one of his is the kind of major shareholder who myself, him and I very different, which has been a great part of the business is the analytical, detailed one. So yeah, we we work really well together on that

Andrew Rocks
if you listen carefully, that’s him laughing at

Kris Mason
the moment. And then yeah, Chris Mackenzie brands. So we had, we’ve had kind of initial crew, and we’ve built on that so brought in Karen Clark, who’s a really strong General Manager, our CFO has just become an equity holder. So we’ve just added people never been afraid to get people good money to get them in the business. So reinvestments been a huge part of our success. Yeah, we weren’t, I wasn’t ripping big money out of the business for a long time, everything was largely going back into it. And I think for me, that was one of the benefits of starting young was I didn’t have three kids at private school and all the income demands that I might have today. So it was great. Being able to start it sat around and pretty lean out of it sit out have a spare bedroom in a place and just build it from there. But adding good good people is key. There’s no way I’d be even close to where we are now if I didn’t have some of those key people involved in the business.

Andrew Rocks
It take me through you holding out on bringing them in as equity holders, if I’m if I’m starting with you, and I’m aspirational. And how does that journey look for me? Is it is it a time based thing? Is it sort of America or what’s your process for for greeting people through? Yeah, look,

Kris Mason
we haven’t got any we’ve never had any real set formula. It’s just I think as a business owner about you know, you know, when someone’s getting is to invaluable so we’ve always if it doesn’t matter whether been there a year or five years or what have you if we need to have that conversation we have

Andrew Rocks
awesome. So the other festivals that you mentioned about you at the stage didn’t have three kids in five okay, you got your three kids now how do you balance looking after a firm looking after you know, the acquisitions and also sort of you your family and health What do you do you I might

Kris Mason
well I don’t play to unwind if you if you speak to my business partners, I’m sure they will attest to but I love Sports I still buy touch football, still play golf still play cricket? I do a lot of that stuff. I mean, yeah, it’s a big business. But it’s I’ve got really good people in key areas. Really good general manager that, that looks after all the staff. My role, if anything, I think as we get bigger, in some ways gets easier because you’ve got good people doing a lot of the stuff that you used to the probably a lot better than I ever was at it. You know, I can focus on the, on the Yeah, the m&a part of the business or the the new joint ventures coming up, which is an area that yeah, I’ve always had a lot of and, and, and good at and that’s, it’s great. Really the business? Yeah, the growth has been manageable growth, still got a good work life balance, no problems there. So it’s no dramas at all. And

Andrew Rocks
when I think about, you know, particularly you’ve been or BP does your business, when you get direct clients in? Also, do you get direct clients who get ripped come directly?

Kris Mason
Yeah, we have plenty of direct clients, I think. And I drew here to answer a lot of these. A lot of these detail questions, but I would say probably 20% of our clients Direct, which would be friends family, referred from existing clients. Yeah. So we still do a lot of that. I mean, I suppose the core of the business has always been the b2b stuff. But yeah, we still do a lot of direct client work as well, especially currently, I think, at the moment, one thing that I’m well aware of that speak to a lot of our referrals about to kind of get them revved up to referral clients is access to advice is hard. We know it’s a big issue at the moment. No one’s giving insurance advice. Yeah, the bank used to go to the bank, and you’d get it or what have you. Now that doesn’t exist? So what do they get out? Don’t Don’t assume that people are getting can get access to a an insurance specialist to give them some advice on what they’ve got, or what they haven’t got. So, um, yeah, we speak to our referrals a lot about that, it’s not getting good advice. And I think planning is probably the same is not easy now. So on, that’s on the, on the top of the government’s list at the moment is how they’re going to increase access to advice. So I think that’s just a good point to make. We’ve, as I said, with a lawyer, first, I think you kind of got this stuff covered off on elsewhere, they just wouldn’t be getting covered off on.

Andrew Rocks
So if I may find a practitioner out there. And I’m looking at life insurance. One of the big issues are currencies around their profitability expressed initially. So in your, your sort of estimate. And by the way, Drew isn’t here, so but to be in your estimate? How long does it take you to think to engage with personal advice for client, take the details, go through the right process and develop sort of a meaningful strategy?

Kris Mason
The insurance, it can be pretty, it can be pretty quick. I mean, in our business, I suppose where it’s day to day, whether it be dealing with a mortgage broker, a planner, we’re coming in with a fair bit if you’ve got a fat fine, that’s probably three chords away, don’t you know, a lot of the information. So the insurance piece isn’t massively complicated. Yeah, getting your head around how to advise the levels of cover and that type of stuff. And a lot of that’s based on the client’s risk appetite, and what have you really guiding them through that process. But our whole model and like what we’re seeing with a lot of the other planning groups is all about Yeah, how do you get more efficient at it quicker? So for us, it’s what can we take away that the planners are doing? That’s just Yeah, mundane work that’s preventing them seeing the next client. So advisors, I think, yeah, one of the parts that they love about MBs is they’re doing the pointy end stuff, they’re doing the client stuff, they’re doing the fat find they’re doing the strategy, and that’s about it then gets handed off to the the administration team, which runs through the rest of it. And we’re seeing a lot of that with our b2b planning groups that are all about Chris, this is why we don’t want to do the insurance because we want Roxy, the financial planner not to have a capacity of 150 clients to have 250. And if he’s doing any of this peripheral work, it’s not going to work. And so it’s all about having a pretty streamline cut through system that gets from A to B pretty quickly. And that’s what Yeah, I suppose that’s the beauty of specialization, we can have a full focus on making sure that the insurance piece is covered half of his income, comprehensively compliance ticked off and everything else but making sure that the advisors aren’t, you know, if you’re, if you’re risky, doing your own SOPs, and all that type of stuff, you’re costing yourself a lot of time that you could be saying, the next client and getting someone else to do it.

Andrew Rocks
Absolutely. And I wanted to also you’ve gone into the operations and whatnot, but there is still a role for soft skills when you’re into it when you’re interacting with the client, regardless of how much information you get. And how does NBS sort of roll out their soft skills, training or what advice would you give people who are listening to this? Whether it be you know, books or programs or what’s your advice on how to learn the soft skills to master life insurance?

Kris Mason
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s a good That’s a very good question. There’s probably not enough of that around these days. But like, I think were being beta bees a bit easier probably for our geysers because, you know, they’re coming from a trusted source normally for their accountant has told them they need to get their insurance looked at all that just get up on debt and what have you. But internally for us, we have kind of two strands. Well, they they have advisors coming through the business, who will spend time with myself or drew or whatever other business partners Chris McKenzie, he’s kind of head of advice that he runs all the advisors that he’ll do work on that they’ll see the on appointments, and all the rest of it, say the way we yeah, we speak about the or advise our clients in the meetings and what have you say, and we still do plenty of work in that because it’s still is a it’s a relationship and, and trust business. Albeit as I said, in a b2b business, I think you’re four steps ahead of everyone else, because you’ve the trust, the trust element is already there, when you know, the accountant I’ve dealt with for 20 years says you need to speak to these guys to get your insurance sorted out. We’ve dealt with them for a long time. They’re very good. So that that certainly helps.

Andrew Rocks
I must ask, every time you know, you hear about people entering into a referral arrangement, whether it be accountants or whatnot. Do you find that you do the life insurance advice with that referring partner at all? Or early in the piece? Or is it a prerequisite for them to give you good? Or does it not matter? I really love to hear what you’re

Kris Mason
there to learn their own way.

Andrew Rocks
Well, some people go if you get this, then I’ll understand it. But but I’m not sold on that. But you tell me?

Kris Mason
Yes. Oh, it’d be combination with us a lot. Originally, with the smaller accounting firms want heavier, we’d always do the buy, sell and that type of stuff. So they get to see what we do, initially. And yeah, the business stuff generally rolls into the personal stuff anyway. So we’re doing that now. It’s probably wait, just make sure we go out of our way. And I think this is really important. We’re always on the way our broker that if you get a good result for a client, you make sure you articulate that back to that referring accountant or referring planner. So that accounts referred to your client paying 20 and market rights, that ain’t and you save them paper money and add some policies that they may not have had or whatever. So we will, we’re big on our advisors. Because I think no.

Andrew Rocks
Like, that’s almost like a bit of a health check on your life insurance. Is that part of your offering? Yep. Yep. Yeah. And that’s kind of a part of, I suppose adding value to

Kris Mason
Yeah, so we’ve we’ve done a few things like with, with a couple of accounting firms, where they’ve said to their clients, yeah, we’ve got this new insurance division, we’re doing compulsory insurance audits on all our clients. So our advisor is going to have a look at what you’ve got, it’s all obligation free, he’s gonna make comment around the strength of the product, the pricing, anything else from Yeah, that you may be missing, or whatever that was, they use their own language, our accountants, audits, and that was, you know, there’s been a massive success for us. So Well, the way of extracting work is kind of the other part of the game with accounts constantly working with them to making sure you’re getting access to enough clients to do the work with and so that’s, that’s training, that’s marketing, that’s putting stuff in newsletters that’s talking about the volatility of the market and the need for reviews. And yeah, all the all the, you know, the importance of having trauma cover and things like that we’ve kept chipping away at their, their client bases to make sure the works coming out.

Andrew Rocks
Now, you mentioned that you’ve dealt with a lot of accountants, and I didn’t know that. But you know, a quick glance at your, your website, there’s an increasing trend, and maybe you can give us a bit of a feel for what you’re doing now, where you’re actually forming part of the financial planning offering of financial planning spit businesses, not just accounting firms. Yes. When did that start? And, and, you know, how have you? Have you made that work without, I suppose, you know, compromising the importance of the financial planet? Maybe take us through that that journey the last couple of years? Yes, I

Kris Mason
suppose that probably really, really started taking off for us. The accounting was obviously generally the kind of the mainstay, I suppose, or the main b2b partner. And then the Royal Commission brought in a bit of a flood of work for us around so we had a we took over or bought the JB wheeze insurance business off them so that a couple of internal rovers pretty cool. And a lot of advice groups post royal commission were found of kind of scope they’re offering to Okay, how are we going to really try that might have been a compliance play could have been whatever we have, we want to focus on the wealth, but we’re not going to do any of the peripheral stuff. It’s, there’s too much liability there. We’re out there kind of half doing it. You know, the brokers swiping on Yeah, the advisors are sweeping. Yeah, they’re doing bits and pieces of it, but they’re not doing it properly. And then they actually don’t want to do most advisors got not yet, especially with the IP changes and premium volatility. They had a lot of clients coming back to them so that that kind of initiated a heap of paper flow l big flow of work to us, we had a lot of big groups saying, Okay, we’ve got this wealth business that we’re going to keep building that the full focuses around tech and everything else is going to be for the wealth. We’ve got an example $10 million worth of insurance premium sitting over here. We’re not really that active on it. Yeah, we don’t want to get caught up in fees for no service, can you guys just come in and provide that service or take over the book or buy the book and, and we’ll give you all our ongoing work? And in most cases, they’d mandate that, okay, we’re no longer offering insurance advice, insurance advice is referred on to MBs. Or what? Yeah, it could be a white label entity or whatever. So that I think the specialization pieces certainly got bigger and bigger over the last four or five years because it was an easy it was an easy tidy, tidy up for a lot of firms to go okay, well, doing bits and pieces of stuff and not doing properties not gonna, he’s not gonna cut the mustard now. So how do we tidy up our different areas? And that was one of the ones was we do it properly, or we don’t do a lot I have chosen not to on the insurance side, especially the bigger wealth mob. So we’ve got some big wealth groups that we’re, we’re in business with, and some some pretty big ones that we’re we’re in discussions with at the moment as well. So that that’s the kind of big area for us.

Andrew Rocks
And it’s not it’s it’s, it’s intelligent for them. Because, you know, financial planning is as much about risk management as anything, especially if you’re self license in particular, or any, in fact, with all licenses some risk of some way around the eye a geographic or is it if you’ve got sort of where are those welfare, for instance, that you’ve recently been involved with?

Kris Mason
Yeah, so obviously, the bigger the firm, often in multiple states, so we’ve got offices in Sydney, big one in Melbourne, big one in Perth, small one in Brisbane. So we’re pretty well got it fundamentally covered. Yeah. So and, and our I suppose office expansion has just been in line with where we’ve had to be due to I mentioned, JB, we earlier, they obviously got clients in Melbourne, Brisbane that they wanted services part of the arrangement that we came up with, so we had to make sure we had a presence there. So

Andrew Rocks
So in tandem with sort of the partnership model, and you’ve mentioned, you bought Oxford business, and there’s lots of people sort of this new this who have either bought a business or not, maybe give us an idea of when you look to purchase a piece of business, you know, what are you looking for? And, and, you know, maybe if you’ve got a preferred lender that you can talk about, because we do get those questions just to get a feel for it.

Kris Mason
Yeah, so lending wise, Macquarie have always done our lending work. And if we’re looking at acquisitions, or often the acquisitions are part of a joint venture arrangement. It’s always our ultimate kind of acquisition is an acquisition that comes with ongoing distribution. So going concern by books, right, you’re not doing that. We want books, and we want the pieces that work. Yeah. So I suppose like one of the more recent ones who was Capital Partners in NWA, Serena West was one of the equity holders, they’re really good insurance specialists. So she’s come across with us as an equity holder was part of the transaction. But that was, I think, for me seven or $8 million worth of premium and the management and a really strong well firm that will continue to refer. So you get the existing book, but then you’ve got 15 Odd planners that will then refer all their work to us moving forward. So you nearly get the best of both worlds, you get a book, but then you get a heap of ongoing work. And that’s same with JB where we bought their book, and they’ve been mandated to refer their insurance work to us moving forward. So that that for us is now the ultimate and I will still look at standalone books if at the right price and what have you. But certainly, if you can get acquisition that come with distribution, I think that’s ideal.

Andrew Rocks
And do you engage with the lender early on? Or is it sort of something you’ve done that many of them it’s it is an understanding

Kris Mason
on how we engage them? Pretty early on? Yeah. And that that have a good look at it. So our CFO does all the work with McQuarrie so he’ll sort that out. So but yeah, definitely they’re, they’re 100% across what we’re doing, given they’ve done a fair bit with us, as well. So yeah,

Andrew Rocks
again, again, a classic case if you’ve outsourced that job, Chris, congratulations. Yeah. Because you’re gonna have equity and not having to do the numbers. So Well, then. There’s this this kids out there this this is a very interesting sort of case study. It’s quite transferable. You surround yourself with with people and empower them. What kind of leader would you describe yourself? What’s your leadership style?

Kris Mason
Like I’m reasonably relaxed type of guy, but I drew and I are also very competitive as well. So we’re hungry. We want yeah, if there’s business out there to be done, and we can progress the business will we’ll go hard at it. So yeah, sometimes very familiar. I think everyone thinks he’s super relaxed. But yeah, I still want people I get a kick out of seeing people progress themselves. I dislike people sitting in neutral for too long. I’m a big believer that people have moving forward in their lives are going to be happy. So I want to help create that environment in Yeah, you get the naturally hungry people that are always looking to go. Yeah, one of our business partners, Chris McKenzie has been happy. Yeah, he’s been hungry from day one. Yeah, he does this this year. He wants to do this for next year. So you don’t need to motivate guys like they’re, they’re on the go. And they’re, they want to Yeah, want to progress. And other people sometimes just need some encouragement. So that’s one of the roles that that I plan the business at the moment he’s trying to get. It doesn’t doesn’t matter what what area of the business you’re in, I’m trying to push people to the, to the next level, because it said, I am a very, I’ve got a very relaxed demeanor. But I’m also very competitive as well. And I’ve got big ambitions for the business. So it’s that’s kind of that’s my management song we got about James pretty Yeah, she keeps people between the lines a bit a role to do they want to do it. So we yeah, we’ve got a different different styles or suppose internally, but that’s, I think that’s a good thing. But

Andrew Rocks
it’s interesting to say, you’ve got $100 million dollars of life insurance in your practice, which to the best of my knowledge is not institutionally iron ore or private equities, which is 100% increase. And you’re still saying that you’ve you’ve got a lot of ambition? Where do you see the business in in sort of three to five years. So

Kris Mason
we’re just about to come back. Last week, late last week, we had two or three days off site to reset all the plans and budget. So we want to get to four to 500 million pre money management in the next three or four years, which is obviously everyone’s favorite number we’re targeting as well. But I suppose we just sense there’s a lot of opportunity, Roxy, at the moment, like the markets in a bit distributions in upheaval, a bit at the moment, a lot of players getting out of it specialization becoming more prominent. Yeah, we know we’re in a really strong position at the moment, we’ve got a big scale business, we’ve got really good resources, we’ve got system and process that we know are in a position that if if a bank wants out of their insurance business, which we’ll have, we can we can step up there and do that type of stuff. So I think it’s, it’s make hay while the sun shines a bit, because I believe it’ll kind of calm down again, probably in four or five years, but at the moment is a lot of opportunity. Random will continue to push pretty hard at the moment when stuff comes up. And I think the one good thing that we’ve had over we get referred into a lot of stuff. Yeah, we’ve we’ve done a good job with relationships. And then the word gets around, you know, Macquarie Bank have been great for us it fits into Jamie Melville at Macquarie is always on the phone to draw saying that this firm, you got to speak to about this firm. So you’re in this, I think, in our industry and plan, if you do the right thing that, yeah, or mortgages, or whatever it is, the word will get out there. And they’ll be plenty. And that’s the most powerful of a referral you’re going to get when when you’re getting tipped into those type of things.

Andrew Rocks
Well, I get it. I mean, I get a feel. And I do I do know that your business that there’s a there’s a culture of winning, and there’s a culture of success, right. And that’s, it’s almost that winning and success is pie in your your business to steal a golf raise, which you may have for golf, which just just but if I’m if I’m an XY person listening to you, it sounds like I’ve got some options. If I’ve got to do it. You mean, are you still taking sort of small to medium sized business referrals? Or is it all now? Big, big partnerships?

Kris Mason
Well, we’re happy to look at anything here, whether it be a smaller boutique planning practice that wants to refer, work out and strike a relationship, no problems, if it’s a it’s a corporate or a bank, or whatever we’ll have, we’ll have that conversation as well. Yeah, because it’s all it’s all good insurance work at the end of the day. And as long as we can keep up the internal resources, which have had no problems tonight, we’ll certainly look at it.

Andrew Rocks
And what about what about talent? What about people employed to do the thing that, you know, sounds like the executive has got numerous opportunities in the business. How do you continually attract and retain those mid ranked people that really drive the business?

Kris Mason
Well, man, it’s just one of those things that I think, yeah, often we will get good people with a transaction like Serena west. So you’re, you’re buying a pretty good sized business over there. But you’re getting there, the planet that comes with it, and a couple other support staff that just kind of fold into our administration team, which is great. So that’s yeah, often and with JB, we had two internal risk advisors that came across with us so often, you can pick up the resources with it. Yeah, we’ve got a pretty good RAM structure for all our advisors that allows them really to kind of build a business within the business and keep building their

Andrew Rocks
registry maybe stop your net What that insinuates is that that they get they’re getting a share like a short term incentive on retention, not just acquisition. Is that correct? Yes.

Kris Mason
Yep. Correct. Yep. And the more we acquire, the more like they get the opportunity to manage which their rooms pin to that as well. So I suppose out, I think in any any growing business is exciting. It is top, it’s pretty exciting for people at the bottom because there’s a lot of growth, there’s opportunity, if you’re an advisor to get a lot more work or manage more clients. If you’re if you’re part of a growing back office administration team. There’s positions popping up there all the time. So yeah, I think I think everyone loves being part of a business that’s, that’s on the move. So that’s probably been one thing that’s been easy enough for us. And we’ve had, yeah, our staff retention and stuff is very good.

Andrew Rocks
One of the things that XYZ wanted to celebrate the positive evolution of financial advice, and after nearly half a decade, or even a decade of being beaten up, especially around life and life insurance, it’s always it’s quite refreshing to talk about businesses on that in life insurance, businesses that are competent about the future, businesses that view the life insurances as business partners, which can only help the clients and the general public and I’d like to take the time, Chris, to thank you and, and vicariously thank the team behind you that make your day easier than what otherwise would be. And for those listening, if you want to reach out or get in touch, there’s there’ll be links that we links attached to this and obviously MBS insurance.com au is a great destination on behalf of x y. Thanks very much for your time, Chris, and maybe the next 20 years be as good as the last one. Cheers Mate.

Kris Mason
Thanks.