Take your Business Statement of Advice (SoA) to the next level!

Take your Business Statement of Advice (SoA) to the next level and join us on Tuesday, 2 July 2024 11:00 am-12:00 pm as Aneel, our AdviceTech Lead demonstrates how to produce a business SoA supported with pricing and research on lump sum and Key Person Cover.

The next products on our radar are Rural Cover and Business Expenses, so keep an eye out for more information on this.

If you would like to register yourself or are interested in a personalised session for your organisation, please send us an email on aneel.ravji@qpresearch.co.nz

We look forward to seeing you there!

Explore New Research and RegTech at the Quotemonster Roadshow

We are thrilled to invite you to the Quotemonster Roadshow 2024! We have two new regtech tools to help keep you safe, some major new research to highlight, more than 175 legacy contracts researched, and much, much more.

What’s in it for you?

Access new research: Check out 200+ updated products researched including: the latest business insurance research, group health insurance research, and legacy products

Stay safe with new Regtech: Discover how Checkmonster, Premium History Reports, and Company reports can keep SOAs compliant

Expanded offer: Explore how to tackle new opportunities with business insurance SOAs and details on staying compliant while advising on existing business

What’s coming: We’re kiwi-owned and kiwi-based so it’s only natural we branch out and give you a sneak peek at Kiwimonster

Join us at a location near you to gain continuing professional development credits, learn how to save time in creating effective comparisons and recommendations, and drive your business forward.

Last year more than 700 advisers joined us for the roadshow with exclusive access to our speaker panel and lots of time to discuss the ins and outs of using research and our other tools to make powerful and robust recommendations.

Click on the link below to register for your town.

Taupo

Tauranga

Hamilton

West - Auckland

Christchurch

Invercargill

East/Central - Auckland

Napier

Palmerston North

Wellington

New Plymouth

Queenstown

Dunedin

South - Auckland

Whangarei

North - Auckland

Nelson

Click here to see all venues and dates.

We look forward to seeing you there!

New Research Deep Dive Session introduced

Join Quotemonster’s research team as we meet up online and have a discussion on a research topic – our focus in this meeting is Comprehensive Trauma, other types of trauma will be discussed at a later time.  

In this session, we will explain our trauma rating, any changes that have been made to these products in the last quarter and some research reviews we have in progress. This is Q&A style and while we have prepared an agenda, the aim is for advisers to come along and ‘ask us anything’ about trauma, provide claims or general feedback on the topic.

Our goal is to focus on a specific research topic each time we meet, show advisers where they can find related infographics or resources that can then be shared to clients, and to have a sneak peek into the QPR database.

Prerequisites: This session is for advisers who already have a basic understanding of our research methodology and would like to deepen their knowledge, we highly recommend attending our Introduction to Quotemonster prior to joining our Research Deep Dive.    

If you would like to attend our first session scheduled on Thursday, 13 June 2024 11:30 am-12:30 pm, please email us info@quotemonster.co.nz and we will send you a calendar invite. Furthermore, if there is a topic you would like us to prioritise, please submit your request to the above mentioned email.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Quality Product Research: Research Advisory Board – Northern

We recently held our first Research Advisory Board meeting of the year with our Northern Representatives and as usual returned to Quotemonster HQ with a pack of valuable feedback. 

Board members: Anand Srinivasan, Allan Gillbanks and Katrina Church

Independent Chair: Tony Dench

Insurer Observers: Connor Ryan (Fidelity Life) and Kirsten Raynor (Asteron Life)

QPR Representatives: Russell Hutchinson, Doreen Dutt and Sara Alani

The research advisory board reviewed the following topics:

·         Income and Mortgage Protection Weighting Review

·         Business Insurance - Key Person Rating

·         The Addition of Legacy Research to our Standard Quote Flow

·         A handful of research reviews we have accumulated based on adviser feedback

The feedback from our Research Advisory Board meetings has overall been very valuable to our Research team and allows us to strengthen our research ratings when we gain an insight into the adviser perspective.

We look forward to visiting our Central and Southern teams later this year.  

For more information on our Research Advisory board please click here.

Website upgrades: what you need to know

Our IT Development team have been working hard to improve the services that we offer our advisers as well as improving user experience.

If you’ve noticed we’re running a bit slower than usual, please refresh your page and scroll down to ensure that you’re on our latest version – QUOTE ENGINE V.3.0 B1 | QPR V.15.8 | WEB V.4.6.0

Here are the changes that we’ve made:

General updates:

- All users with an active account, whether on Free, Researchmonster or Advicemonster can access the Policy Archives. Click here to view a short video showcasing this function.

- A few more handy tips and hints in the Personal and Business Product and Provider Settings.

Two factor authentication (2FA):

- Users can now submit the six-digit authentication code by hitting ‘Enter’ on their keyboard, previously you could only click ‘NEXT.’

Researchmonster updates:

- The Compare Premium chart now shows the total premium and adjusts when you click the colour key to remove a benefit. If you do decide to remove a benefit entirely, don’t forget to head back to the benefit details, unselect and re-crunch to reflect this in your PDF research report.

- In our Standalone Head to Head, the default benefit period has been updated for Income Protection comparisons, the default is now To Age 65.

Advicemonster updates:

- Advicemonster users have two options to view their Business Product and Provider Settings, access this via the main menu or the tool icon to the left of your account name.  

- The default benefit period for Business Income Protection comparisons has been updated 2 Years. Many insurers offer a limited selection of products in their business insurance suite, our team have created an infographic that highlights the selections you’ll need to make to include certain products in your comparison.

Training sessions:

We are hosting online training sessions on Researchmonster and Advicemonster on a regular basis and invite you and your team to join us if you’re interested in learning more about these new features. Our next sessions will be: 

Quotemonster training - Wednesday, 5 June 2024 10:00 am-11:00 am
In this session, we will demonstrate the basic functions of our website, along with some handy tips and tricks along the way.

Demystifying Advicemonster - Thursday, 6 June 2024 10:00 am-11:00 am

In this session Aneel Ravji, our AdviceTech Lead, will demonstrate how to use our needs analysis and statement of advice (SOA) tools.

Business Risk Research and SOAs - Thursday, 6 June 2024 11:30 am-12:30 pm

In this session, Aneel will demonstrate how to use our business risk pricing, research, and SOA functionality.

If you would like to join either of these sessions, please email your request to info@quotemonster.co.nz

Happy Crunching!

Research and website upgrades: what you need to know

QPR Database V15.8 has been released! 

Our Research team have made some monstrously good updates to the QPR database recently. If you’ve noticed we’re running a bit slower than usual, please refresh your page and scroll down to ensure that you’re on our latest version – QUOTE ENGINE V.3.0 B1 | QPR V.15.8 | WEB V4.5.9

Our latest updates to Researchmonster include:

- Policy documents update effective 8 March 2024

-          AIA Private Health

-          AIA Cancer Care

-          AIA Real Health (access via Standalone Head to Head)

-          ASB Private Health  

o   Rating changes applied to:

·         Loyalty Benefits, Physiotherapy, Medical Tourism, Recovery Benefit, Exclusions

For further information on these changes, please click here.

- Asteron Life – Policy documents update effective 25 March 2024

o   Rating changes in personal applied to:

·         Life: Grief & Funeral Support, Terminal Illness, Child Funeral

·         Trauma: Benefit Payment, ADL requirements for a range of major trauma conditions reduced from three to two - Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Encephalitis, Major head Trauma, Meningitis/meningococcal Disease, Multiple Scenarios, Muscular Dystrophy, Parkinsons Disease, Peripheral Neuropathy, Stroke, Cerebral Aneurysm

·         Income and Mortgage Protection: Wait Period Reduction  

o   Rating changes in business applied to:

·         Life: Grief & Funeral Support

·         Key Person: Benefit Payment Criteria, Conversion

·         Trauma: Benefit Payment, Systemic Sclerosis

For further information on these changes, please click here.

- Reviews:

o   Medical: sub-item remediation to Diagnostic Tests, Exclusions

o   Trauma: sub-item remediation to Child Trauma, Coma, Life Cover Buyback, Upgrade Policy Wording, incidence remediation to Future Insurability, amount score remediation to Special Events Increase

o   Life: sub-item remediation to Business Events Increase

o   Review of nib ‘Serious Conditions Financial Support Option’

Policy document linked and updates made to:

o   Pinnacle Life (all products)

o   Momentum Life (all products)

Financial Strength Ratings (FSR) updates applied to:

o   AA Life from AA- to AA+

o   Accuro from B+ to B

o   Asteron Life from AA- to A+

o   Southern Cross from A to A+

Our Insurer Pass Back Rules and Policy Terms infographic has also been updated and here is where you can view and download a copy:

Standalone Head to Head is a powerful tool subscribers can use to:

-          Compare legacy products for replacement business

-          Compare products from the same provider; e.g., AIA Critical Conditions vs Progressive Care

-          Compare different product sets; e.g., Severe Trauma vs Comprehensive Trauma

-          Quick head to head research comparisons

Please note this feature is still in Beta version so please reach out to us if you have any feedback that you would like us to consider in our next round of development.

Our Health Benefit Maximums report available to Researchmonster and Advicemonster users, has also been updated to align with the updates in our research database. This quick reference guide aims to help advisers quickly identify some of the important differences when it comes to health cover benefit maximums. It doesn't include every individual niche benefit that some insurers offer, and some benefits can only be claimed on under specific circumstances (e.g., within 12 months of surgery).

Business Insurance is a powerful tool Advicemonster subscribers can use to quote, research, and run a needs analysis on for Life, Trauma, TPD and Key Person. We highly recommend joining us for our next online training session to learn more about the service, and as a thank you for attending we can offer a 14-day trial on your account for new users.

Our next session is scheduled for: 

Thursday, 6 June 2024 11:30 am-12:30 pm

Upcoming training sessions: 

- Introduction to Quotemonster

Quotemonster training session where we demonstrate the basic functions of our website, along with some handy tips and tricks along the way.

Wednesday, 5 June 2024 10:00 am-11:00 am or Wednesday, 19 June 2024 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

- Demystifying Advicemonster

Advicemonster training session where we demonstrate how to use our needs analysis and statement of advice (SOA) tools.

Thursday, 6 June 2024 10:00 am-11:00 am

If you have any questions or are interested in attending one of the above-mentioned sessions, please send us a request on info@quotemonster.co.nz 

Happy Crunching!

Legacy product research (an update)

As of 30 April 2024, the following legacy product research is available in our Standalone Head-to-Head:

•      AA Life 2006, 2013, 2016, 2019

•      AIA Total Care Max 2001 to current Life cover

•      AIA MajorCare with Specialist & Tests 2019

•      American Income 2021

•      ANZ Life and Living 2015

•      ANZ Lifestyle Protection 2007-2008, 2009, 2010

•      ASB Absolute Health 2012-2014

•      ASB MajorCare with Specialist & Tests 2019

•      Asteron Life Smart Plan 1998

•      BNZ Men’s ReCover 2004

•      Cigna Flexi Card 2014, 2015

•      Cigna Farmers Finance 1996/1998

•      Cigna LifeOne 2014

•      Co-Operative Bank 2013, 2018

•      Countdown Life 2014

•      Greenwich Life 2018

•      Guardian Assurance 1996

•      MAS 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018-2021

•      Momentum Life 2019

•      nib Premier Health 2017

•      nib Premier Health Business 2017

•      nib Premium Hospital 2017

•      nib Easy Health 2018

•      nib Top Private Hospital Cover Plus 2017

•      nib Stay Well Classic 1996

•      nib Private Hospital Silver 2017

•      nib Life & Living 2018

•      nib Hospital Cover EasyCare 2017

•      nib Major Medical + Major Medical Deluxe 2015

•      nib Cancer & Cardiovascular Benefit 2012

•      NZ Seniors 2022

•      NZHL 2019, 2021, 2023

•      OneChoice 2019, 2021, 2023

•      Pinnacle Life 2010

•      Southern Cross Regular Care 2018

•      Southern Cross Ultra Care 2021

•      State Insurance 2013

•      Tower Life 360 2008-2010, 2011-2013,

•      Westpac Gold Term 2010, 2012, 2017

•      Westpac Term 1990-1995,1995-2000, 2007, 2012 2017

•      Unimed UniCare Advantage 2023

•      Unimed UniCare Plus 2023

•      Unimed Major Surgical + Major Surgical with Specialists &Test 2023

•      Fidelity Serious Care Plus 2001 and 2003

•      Fidelity Serious Care 2001

The following legacy product research has been rated and will be loaded to our Standalone Head-to-Head in the coming weeks. If you’re interested in a rating for one of these products or have a product that you believe we should rate, please reach out to us on info@quotemonster.co.nz

•      AA Life 2009, 2014, 2018, 2022

•      ANZ Life and Living 2010, 2016, 2017, 2020

•      ANZ Lifestyle Protection 2004, 2011, 2015

•      ANZ Lifestyle Insurance 2014, 2015

•      AMP Vital Plus Crisis 2020

•      Asteron Smartplan 2000

•      BNZ BillAssure 2005

•      Cigna Bill Protection 2018

•      Kiwibank 2010, 2018

•      Mercer Bill Protection 2016

•      nib Standard Hospital 2017

•      SBS Bank 2014

•      State Insurance 2007

•      Sovereign Absolute Health 2010

•      Unimed Health Positive 2023

Happy Crunching!

Quotemonster celebrates our 1,000th research subscriber

Congratulations to Zhan Viljoen from JV Financial Services on being our 1,000th research subscriber! 🎉

Our Data Scientist, Edward Foster hand delivered a special cake to him a few weeks back and learned his dad, Jan Viljoen has been a loyal Quotemonster user for many years.

To celebrate this milestone, we have also donated $1,000 to Big Buddy via The Good Registry - gifting goodness as nominated by Zhan.

We also want to say a massive THANK YOU to every single one of our subscribers for your continued support, and we can’t wait to work alongside you for many more years to come.

Big Buddy are doing some amazing work across NZ for our lads ages 7 to 14 years. Click here to learn more about them or check out The Good Registry for a list of the charities they’ve partnered with.

To learn more about Zhan, Jan and the JV Financial Services team, please click here: https://jvfs.co.nz/

Happy Crunching!

Partners Life pricing and product changes effective 22 April 2024

Dear Quotemonster users,

We are pleased to confirm that the rate changes to Partners Life medical cover, effective 22 April 2024 are live on Quotemonster.

Partners Life also announced a range of enhancements, please click here to find a summary of their product enhancements and clarifications. Today, we were provided with the updated policy documents (v19.1), and will be able to provide a detailed overview on how these enhancements affect our research ratings, once the wordings have been systematically reviewed.

Rest assured we will post a notification once these ratings are live on Quotemonster.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Happy Crunching!

Chubb Life Lifetime Reward Campaign live on Quotemonster

Chubb Life have increased their 10% Lifetime Reward discount to 15% for all new Assurance Extra and Assurance Extra Business Life and Trauma policies issued from 16 April to 30 June 2024 for customers who:

- have a BMI measurement of between 18.5 and 24.9, and

- have been a non-smoker for at least 12 months

Clients can also combine this with the current 2 months’ free and multi-benefit discount offers.

Click here to read about the offer and any terms and conditions that may apply.

How to include this option on Quotemonster:
- Create or open a quote
- Enter client information and click through to the Benefit Details screen
- Add in the benefit details and click Crunch to get a premium comparison
- Click on the Chubb Life logo in the Result window to open the Quote result window,
- Tick the Apply 15% Lifetime Reward checkbox.

You will need to do this for each quote where you want to include the discount.

Scroll down to review that the 15% Lifetime Reward has been applied.

If you have any questions, comments, or complaints, we want to hear them so please drop an email to  info@quotemonster.co.nz.

Happy Crunching!