Chatswood serves the life and health insurance sector in New Zealand with market intelligence, data, and bespoke consulting services. Some of these are provided in conjunction with Quality Product Research Limited - a subsidiary that brings you Quotemonster.
We believe that good decisions are more likely to occur when we have good information about the market environment in which we operate. Intuitive leaps and creative decisions are always required, of course, but the more they are based on a firm foundation of observation, the better they tend to be.
Ultra-Processed Foods and their negative impact on health
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are getting a (deservedly) bad rap. Often high in fats, sugar and/or salt, they are energy-dense and nutrient-poor. They have generally undergone intense processes (like high-temperature extrusion or hydrogenation) and usually contain food additives and/or industrial ingredients like colours, artificial flavours, emulsifiers and preservatives. If you don’t recognise some of the ingredients on the label as food, then it’s likely to be an UPF. They are manufactured to be cheap, convenient and have a long shelf life.
They’re ubiquitous in our food chains. Walk the aisles of your local supermarket and so much of what is on the shelves can be considered a UPF. They can be foods mistakenly considered healthy (flavoured yoghurts, cereals) to products we all know aren’t good for us (here’s looking at you, fizzy drinks and frozen pizza). Some estimates have found more than half our diet is now composed of UPFs.
During a cost of living crisis, UPFs can often be a cheap, quick way of filling bellies – not everyone can afford to avoid them or has the time to cook meals from scratch every day.
So why should we limit our intake of UPFs?
In a 2020 review of 43 studies on UPF consumption and health outcomes, 37 studies found at least one adverse health outcome. There’s increasing evidence linking UPF intake and chronic conditions, in particular obesity, but also cancer and depressive symptoms. Studies have found that people who consume more UPFs have higher risks of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Studies following large groups have worrying conclusions
2019 BMJ study of more than 105,000 people followed for five years found that for every 10% increase in the amount of ultra-processed foods participants ate, their risk of heart attack or stroke went up by 12%. And another 2019 BMJ study, this one involving almost 20,000 people followed for 10 years on average, found that participants who ate more than four servings of ultra-processed foods per day had a 62% higher risk of dying during the study (from any cause) compared with those who ate two servings per day.
There’s evidence that UPFs are very addictive. They’re engineered to be hyper-palatable so you want to eat more of them. Vast amounts of money are spent by food manufacturers, fine-tuning formulations to find the best taste. Research has found some UPFs can elicit cravings, loss of control and an inability to cut back. There’s also increasing evidence that a diet high in UPFs leads to increased energy intake and weight gain.
Even the packaging can be a concern, with one study finding higher consumers of UPF had higher urinary concentrations of phthalates and bisphenols that may have migrated from the food packaging.
With UPFs being compared to other public health crises like tobacco and opioids, some groups are calling for public health interventions that go beyond education, saying that UPFs meet the criteria requiring regulation – abuse, toxicity, ubiquity and externalities (how does your consumption affect me?).
My pick is we’re going to start seeing more backlash against UPFs as more research showing how bad they are for us comes out.
More daily news:
Katrina Shanks has tricks to stop credit card debt from snowballing
Another review of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA) is to be carried out
Lawsuit against Asteron Life junked by the Court of Appeals
ASB's profit was $1.56 billion in the 12 months to the end of June
Longitudinal study finds overall improvement in financial literacy in young kiwis
The FDA has approved the first pill for treatment of postpartum depression
Suncorp New Zealand made an after-tax profit of $115m for the year to 30 June
Suncorp New Zealand made an after-tax profit of $115m for the year ended 30 June 2023. This was down 30% compared to the previous year.
Asteron Life performed well, making a profit of $50m, up $35m from the previous year. Asteron Life saw a 25% increase in new business and in-force premium growth of 6.7%.
Asteron Life’s Executive General Manager, Grant Willis, points to the support and engagement from independent financial advisers as one of the key factors in new business growth.
“We value our relationship with advisers and the partnership they have with us in supporting customers through every part of their life Insurance journey, from new business through to claims.
We were independently rated number 1 this year for adviser relationships and claims management, with our adviser net promotor score (NPS) rising from 44% to 66%. This has contributed to a new business market share increase from 10.5 % -11.3% (March figures).”
More daily news:
Katrina Shanks and Lyn McMorran claim finance sector fatigued in light of another CCCFA review
Important website upgrades: Quotemonster v4.4.0
Our IT team have made some monstrously good upgrades to Quotemonster recently. To get all the good stuff and make sure the site is running at its fastest, please refresh your page and scroll down to ensure that you’re on our latest version – web V4.4.0.
Our latest updates include:
A beta (testing) function called Upload Insurance Quote is now available to all Advicemonster users. Once you’ve saved a PDF version of your insurer quote, drag this into the portal and be amazed when an overview of your information is shown and automatically input in your Quotemonster Client and Benefit Details. Note this is only a beta version, it uses AI to read the uploaded quote, and we require users to review the information that is generated. For more details about our policy on AI use please refer to our terms and conditions or contact us.
Another update available to Advicemonster users is the option to include more reports in your SOA appendices. Simply select the reports you are interested in including and links will be presented in Appendix Four: Quotemonster Research Report.
Chubb Life’s 10% lifetime discount is available for quoting. This discount is applied to new business clients with healthy BMI measurements of between 18.5 and 24.9, are non-smokers, and have no medical loadings or exclusions. To apply the lifetime discount to your quotes, simply select the company in the Result panel and tick the “Apply 10% Lifetime Reward?” option.
Please note, if you’re interested in accessing a BMI calculator, we have one available in the Underwriting tab.
Specific Injury (SI) pricing and quoting is now available! This benefit has been highly requested over the past few years, so we are very excited about this addition. We received a large amount of feedback from advisers, insurers, industry experts and our research advisory board. The four companies you can compare are AIA, Asteron Life, Chubb Life and Partners Life.
AIA, Asteron Life, and Chubb Life require a qualifying cover to be selected with SI, while Partners Life has a standalone benefit, all products have minimum and maximum cover levels. Here are the relevant rules re-qualifying covers when quoting this benefit on Quotemonster:
The consensus from all the feedback we received was to have Partners Life Specific Injury product (Specific Conditions) excluded from the standard comparison by default but include a tick box which selects and ‘turns on’ the rating for Specific Conditions. Therefore, to include this provider in your premium or research comparison, ensure you have selected Include Partners Life Specific Conditions.
We believe that this approach is fair because it gives those Advisers who wish to provide a complete overview of on-sale Specific Injury products, the option to do so.
If you have any questions or improvements you’d like to bring to our attention, please feel free to email us on info@quotemonster.co.nz
The FSC has released details of the Conference 2023 panels and sessions
The Financial Services Council (FSC) has released details of some of the key events of interest to those in the life insurance and health insurance sectors at the Building Consumer Confidence Conference 2023.
Of interest to the Health Insurance sector:
15 August – Member only session - The great Genetics Debate – creating a win-win for customers
16 August - Breakout session - The future of the Health System in NZ: Public and Private innovating together?
16 August - Breakout session - Equity and Fairness in the Health System
Of interest to the Life Insurance sector:
15 August – Member only session - The great Genetics Debate – creating a win-win for customers
16 August - Breakout session - Be Confident, Be Courageous: what insurance do customers really need?
16 August - Breakout session - Is there a Golden Egg? Balancing of technology, legislation and innovation
More daily news:
FSC release the Climate Scenario Narratives for the Financial Services Sector
Lawyer sues Asteron Life in the Court of Appeal for alleged life insurance contract breach
Southern Cross awarded top 10 in the Kantar Corporate Reputation Index
ACC's latest Innovation Fund for recovery at work projects is now open
New ruling from IRD regarding GST and Directors' and board members' fees
AIA NZ has been awarded the Accessibility Tick
The Co-operative Bank announce full-year profit before tax of $18.8m for the period ending March 31
Tomorrow, Today, Event Series: The AI Revolution – Sustainability event on Jun 27
Stats NZ confirms NZ dipped into recession
Data for Australia shows overall life insurance inflows saw a modest increase of 2.5%
Government to increase the number of funded medical students from 2024
Good Returns has six marketing tips for mortgage advisers
Government announces a five-year focus on tackling rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease