Disintermediation
Life Offices will respond sucessfully to shrinking margin pressure by taking strategic stakes in intermediary firms. Watch this space.
Disclosure and rising consumerism was always going to effect the manufacturing and service processes before the advisory, given the continued demand for one to one advice.
The whole thrust of the largely unstudied, and misunderstood attack under competition law on the IIF cartel, was based on the distortion of cost competition that prevaded the life sector for nigh on 20 years. What your seeing, on the back of technology-led developments, and greater consumer awareness, is merely the unwrapping of an artificial market.
(My point about the IT, was simply to give them a break over minor errors, that's all. No need to distort it by bending it into unrelated issues)