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.
AIA updates the benefits of its living products
AIA has released a raft of changes updating the benefits that apply to its living products covering critical conditions, progressive care, life cover, and family protection, including changes to selected closed Sovereign, TotalCareMax, AIA Trauma and AIA Life Cover products.
Some of the key changes, which are applicable to new claim events on or after 10 October 2023, include:
· The minimum coverage age for standalone children’s trauma has been lowered from two years to three months.
· Extension of the life buyback reinstatement period from 30 to 60 days.
· Removed the benefit for new business that pays on the diagnosis of medically or occupationally acquired HIV, and introduced a new benefit that pays on the diagnosis of advanced AIDS – regardless of transmission method.
· Changed the terminal illness definition to clarify that life expectancy is less than 12 months, despite all reasonable medical treatment.
· Increased bereavement support benefit from $15,000 to $25,000 in cases where there is joint policy ownership.
· Removed the 5% limit to pay up to $20,000 as an early payment if the life assured dies overseas to return their body to either New Zealand or their home country.
More daily news:
Partners Life has updated its underwriting guide
Southern Cross new naming rights sponsor of Wellington Round the Bays
nib says insurance can help families navigate increasing mental health concerns
MAS appoints Matt Harvey as Chief Distribution and Marketing Officer and Craig Ward as Chief Innovation and Digital Officer
FSC webinar 'Leading Lawyers Australia' 31 October
Jon-Paul Hale believes some providers are asking advisers for too much
ACC fund slips from ‘responsible investment leaders’ to ‘responsible investors’
New AI tool diagnoses brain tumours on the operating table and helps surgeons decide how to operate
Fidelity Life makes three key appointments in its Sales and Service team
Fidelity Life has made three key appointments in its Sales and Service Team. David Winspear (left) has been appointed to take on the newly created role of Head of Channel Strategy and Michelle Doyle (middle) has been appointed as the new Head of Solutions, both of whom will report to Fidelity Life’s Chief Sales and Service Officer Bronwyn Kirwan. Kylie Oldham (right) has been appointed as Senior Group Insurance Business Manager, and will report to Fidelity Life’s Head of Group Insurance, Anita Los’e.
David’s role will be leading the design and delivery of Fidelity Life’s channel strategy, delivering sustainable growth across its advisers and strategic alliance partners.
Michelle will be accountable for Fidelity Life’s adviser channel solutions, professional development programmes and their in-house adviser team.
Kylie will be responsible for developing Fidelity Life’s group insurance portfolio and expanding its market presence with new propositions, technology, sustainable pricing and commercial terms.
More daily news:
Partners Life is introducing a TPD option with its trauma cover products
FSC looking for an Event Project Lead and Marketing and Events Coordinator
nib partner with Revolutionaries of Wellbeing
Expressions of interest for the Gallagher Talent Programme 2024 are now open
Kiwibank agrees to pay an $812,500 penalty after it overcharged customers bank fees
Kiwibank recognised as a Gold, Silver and Bronze winner in the 2023 Best Awards
Fidelity Life share insights from key speakers at Engage Conference
FSC release Money & You: Young People and the Cost of Living report
The Financial Services Council (FSC) have released ‘Money & You: Young People and the Cost of Living’ report. The report found that Gen Z and millennials had lower levels of financial wellbeing, financial literacy and financial confidence than older respondents. Some of the key findings from the report include:
Mental health and wellbeing is the number one health concern for both Gen Z (78%) and millennials (52%), with nutrition coming in second place and oral/dental health coming in third place.
61% of Gen Z and 52% of millennials worry about money daily or weekly, compared to only 29% of baby boomers.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) and personal loans are more likely to cause Gen Z and millennials issues than other age ranges.
Only 42% of Gen Z and 51% of millennials would be able to access $5,000 in a time of emergency without going into debt.
41% of Gen Z and 58% of millennials feel very or somewhat confident about planning for their retirement despite 74% of Gen Z and 61% of millennials not having calculated how much money they need in retirement. 45% are contributing the minimum 3% to their KiwiSaver.
52% of Gen Z and 72% of millennials feel very or somewhat confident about choosing an insurance policy. 28% have life insurance, 13% have income protection insurance, 31% have health insurance, 7% have total and permanent disablement insurance and 11% have trauma or critical illness insurance.
More daily news:
Tim Grafton has announced his intention to step down from his position of chief of ICNZ next year
ANZIIF has announced the list of finalists for the New Zealand Insurance Industry Awards.
This week is World Investor Week and NZ's theme is ethical investing
MinterEllisonRuddWatts share legal tips for FinTech start-ups
AIA has released 2022 Claims Data
AIA has released their annual claims data for 2022.
93% of all claims received were accepted.
Paid $646.4 million in claims.
Broken down this comes to $121.5 million in Health claims, $233.8 million in Life claims, $111 million in Trauma claims, $74.4 million in Income Protection claims and $15.3 million in Total Permanent Disablement claims paid.
Over 30,000 health claims were submitted online via the myAIA customer self-service portal.
Life insurance accounted for 42% of all claims.
For those aged 20 - 29 accidents are the main claim for life cover while the main claim for life cover in those aged 30 - 59 is cancer.
Over 815,000 New Zealanders are covered by AIA.
More daily news:
AIA announces major expansion of its gym network
Jon-Paul Hale questions fairness of AIA moving policies after a couple separates
Study finds good financial advice could add almost 6 per cent to New Zealanders’ wealth in 2023
Data is plural - international cancer data
The excellent blog, data is plural, publish links to open-source data which may be of interest. One that caught our eye is a link to International cancer statistics.
The World Health Organization’s Global Cancer Observatory provides interfaces to a range of studies and statistics. Its Cancer Today portal features tables, charts, and maps of “incidence, mortality and prevalence for year 2020 in 185 countries or territories for 36 cancer types by sex and age group.” Those figures come from the latest GLOBOCAN estimates, calculated by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer based on data from national and regional registries. Note: “Caution must be exercised when interpreting these estimates, given the limited quality and coverage of cancer data worldwide at present, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” the researchers warn. Previously: Statistics from the American Cancer Society (DIP 2016.01.27).
This may be especially useful if you want to make comparisons between markets, especially those that you may consider peers, or markets to which we might aspire to be peers with, in terms of cancer treatment and survival rates.
Premium increases at AIA
AIA is increasing premiums on its income protection (IP), waiver of premium and closed trauma products. AIA have said the increases are based on a gradual increase in IP claims and a higher level of claims on closed AIA trauma products compared with their wider trauma portfolio.
The table below shows the pricing increases, with closed AIA trauma products set to have staggered price increases at a rate of 5.2% a year over the next three years.
More daily news:
Tony Vidler recommends advisers keep client consultations simple
The IMF says the NZ Government needs to trim spending or risk prolonging high inflation
Banking ombudsman recommends changes to loan application processes
MyLifeMatters campaign calls for new medicines and more Pharmac investment
Partners Life premium reductions and announcement of upcoming product changes to improve flexibility
Partners Life has made a series of changes to their products resulting in premium reductions or otherwise lower prices for customers:
increased their high sum insured discount, which results in a cheaper premium
decreased the new annual policy fee from $132 to $100 for the Partners Protection Plan
adjusted premium rates for larger sums assured across life, life income, terminal illness and accidental death cover
reduced accelerated trauma on their yearly renewable premium by 10% after allowing for cross-subsidisation between life cover and accelerated trauma
Chief and appointed actuary Kate Dron said
“Given the cost-of-living crisis that’s going on at the moment, we looked at were there any opportunities for us to do anything to actually help our customers out.
….that’s looking at the way that we do things and the way that we run our business and making sure that we’re doing it as efficiently as possible. And where we’re able to do that, we’re seeing that it’s fair for us to allow the customer to share in some of those cost savings, which is why we’ve implemented these changes.”
Partners Life have announced some upcoming changes to make their products more flexible.
Ability to opt out of specific injury option and critical illness option on their disability income
Ability to opt out of total permanent disability on trauma
Financial Advice NZ will run ‘Maximise your money 5-day challenge’ for Sorted Money Month
Financial Advice NZ are running a 5-day maximise your money challenge this Sorted Money Month. The campaign is split by different age brackets and aims to help people learn tips and strategies for establishing good financial habits.
1 – 5 August – Maximise your Money in your 20s
7 – 11 August – Maximise your Money in your 30s
14 – 18 August – Maximise your Money in your 40s
21 – 25 August – Maximise your Money in your 50s and 60s
Sorted is running a series of webinars over Money Month
1 August – Sort your everyday money
1 August – Banqer: Virtual Economy Experience (supported by Partners Life)
8 August – Sort your debt
15 August – Sort your savings
22 August – Sort your KiwiSaver
22 August – Mint Asset Management: Making cents of your money
More daily news:
Fidelity Life paid out $30m in Trauma and Trauma multi claims last year
AIA’s latest claims stats show 93% of claims accepted
Partners Life’s latest claims stats show 89% of claims accepted
Financial Advice NZ webinar ‘Super Wednesday hosted by our Risk MAC' 9 August
Finalists for Financial Services Council 2023 Awards announced
Consumer NZ calls for NZ banks to match what UK & Australia banks do to combat cybercrime
Astrud Burgess appointed as ANZ Group Chief Marketing Officer
Research updates: what you need to know!
QPR Database V15.2A 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 – QPR V.15.2A | WEB V4.3.9.
Our latest updates include:
Cigna rebrand to Chubb Life – this has been live on Quotemonster since the brands launch in March, however all rebranded documents can now be accessed by database subscribers.
Kiwibank rebrand to nib effective 1 June 2023 – more information on this here.
MAS - policy document update for Life & Income Protection effective 1 December 2021, with product rating changes in Income Protection (indemnity) – rating applied in Vocational and Rehabilitation Support .
Research for Partners Life Immediate Trauma Buyback and Asteron Life’s Continuous Trauma is available when Instant Trauma Buyback is selected.
ANZ – policy document update for Life & Living effective 6 March 2023, however, this has not affected product ratings.
Other Research remediations include:
Medical: Exclusions
Income Protection: Insurable Income and Inflation Adjustment
Trauma: Heart Attack
TPD: Benefit Definition over 65
If you have any questions regarding these please feel free to email us on info@quotemonster.co.nz
Happy Crunching!
Quality Product Research: Major Review of Trauma Incidence
According to the FSC, in 2020, a total of $113,700,000 trauma claims were paid out in New Zealand, accounting for 20% of risk claims paid out at the time. Quality Product Research (QPR) uses reinsurer claims information to weight our scoring according to the most important items. For example, 80-90% of our trauma weighting is given to high claiming conditions and the remaining is evenly distributed between minor conditions.
Our incidence factor aims to reflect how likely a benefit will be claimed and is vital within trauma, currently females have an incidence of 69.17% for cancer, while this number is 43.46% in males. Failing to consider this factor would affect the value of certain benefits - we aim to have the incidence rate in our model closely track actual claims to provide a real value-based approach to rating.
Our four-factor research considers four features in our overall score:
Definition x Incidence x Amount x Frequency = Insurance Quality Score
For more information on our methodology please click here.
Based on the most recent claims data from Gen Re, we have reviewed our Trauma Incidence Scores and openly welcome your feedback on these. Please find attached:
A comparison of current and proposed trauma incidence – click here to view (excel file).
A trauma incidence infographic – click here to view (pdf).
Your feedback
We value getting your feedback on how these wordings are being applied to claims you may be aware of. Please email us with details of any recent claims to assist with our ratings.
Doreen Dutt, Quality Product Research Limited, researcher@qpresearch.co.nz
