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.
Next week is Fraud Awareness Week and the SFO is running a webinar series
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is running a series of webinars for Fraud Awareness Week, which runs from 12 – 18 November 2023.
We have written about how scams are on the rise in NZ and how the NZ banking sector has announced new measures in the fight against fraud. Now a recent Grant Thornton New Zealand survey has found only 41% of business owners, leaders and decision makers undertake specific planning for fraud risk, so there’s no better time than now to increase your knowledge in this area. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is running a series of webinars for Fraud Awareness Week, which runs from 12 – 18 November 2023.
Monday 13 November 12.00-1.00pm
Cyber-enabled fraud - this session will explore what cyber-enabled fraud is and some of the ways you can lock your digital door to fraud.
Wednesday 15 November 12.00-1.00pm
Fraud and Artificial Intelligence - hear from two AI specialists about how fraudsters can use AI to commit their crime as well as how AI can be used to help prevent and detect fraud.
Friday 17 November 12.00-1.00pm
True Crime: SFO case study - hear from two of the SFO team about cases they have worked on and how the lessons they learned can help prevent similar financial crimes occurring again.
To register to attend the webinars, contact the SFO at counterfraud@sfo.govt.nz.
More daily news:
Katrina Shanks writes about how to work out the best investment approach
FBAA say lifting the number of mortgages written by independent advisers is top priority
TSB appoints Kerry Boielle as new CEO
Westpac chief executive Catherine McGrath says principles-based legislation is a good thing
Chubb Life remove medical loading conditions on their 10% Lifetime Reward benefit
Chubb life have removed the medical loading conditions from their 10%…
Chubb Life have removed the medical loading conditions from their 10% Lifetime Reward benefit from 25 October 2023. This means all new Life, Life Income and Trauma insurance customers who, at the time of taking out an Assurance Extra or Assurance Extra Business policy have a healthy BMI measurement of between 18.5 and 24.99 and are non-smokers, qualify for the benefit. The 10% discount is guaranteed for the life of the customers policy and will be applied to the risk premium for the eligible covers. FAQ’s around the 10% Lifetime Reward benefit can be found here.
More daily news:
nib launches national adviser seminar series
Katrina Shanks named as new chief executive for ANZIIF
Katrina Shanks writes how people can apply the drawdown rules of thumb for retirement
Southern Cross Health Insurance announces panel of judges for Wayfarer awards
Southern Cross Healthcare recycles 10,000 disposal lens delivery systems
Financial Advice NZ webinar 'The business of merger and acquisition' 8 Nov
FSC announce group discounts for FSC24: Trans Tasman Strategic Leaders Summit
FSC's Workplace Savings End of Year Networking Function 7 November
FDRS Members' Forum and Annual General Meeting 31 Oct
Westpac suggests allowing mutual recognition of AML/CFT due diligence across banks
Quotemonster online roadshow confirmed!
The Quotemonster team have just spent four weeks on the road visiting 15 towns seeing hundreds of advisers. We have received so much great feedback and requests for an online one for those who couldn’t make it.
So now is your last chance to see what all the hype is about. Our online session will be held Wednesday 23 August at 9.30am.
9.30am - 10.30am - Presentation and Demonstration ✅
10.30am - 11.00am - Q&A ✅
We will be covering new tech and new tools:
- New comparisons
- New AI tools to make your life easier
- New ways to make your advice process better, safer, and quicker
Presented by Aneel Ravji, Kelly Pulham and Russell Hutchinson.
Click here to register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OuTZihV9TY-MnmMxqkWw6w#/registration
Quotemonster in Palmerston North!
Thank you for hosting us Palmerston North, we hoped you enjoyed the session!
We have one more week of our roadshow and if you’re interested in attending, please click here to see our remaining dates and locations!
Quotemonster tours the capital!
We had a great session in Wellington this week!
Thank you to the attendees, Compliance Refinery and the FMA for joining us.
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
Quotemonster roadshow - we're selling out fast
Quotemonster will be touring the country from 18 July to 11 August - and we're selling out fast. Some venues are already nearly at capacity. We will have several of the team at most venues and would love to see you - so please click on the link below that corresponds to a convenient location and register to join us.
As an added bonus, for every person that attends we will be donating $20 to a charity (there will be a choice of three) and we would really like to make that $20,000.
New tech and new tools:
New comparisons
New AI tools to make your life easier
New ways to make your advice process better, safer, and quicker
Review of recent guidance by the FMA (and the FMA will attend and present at our Auckland and Wellington venues)
At this stage, we don’t want to say more – but it will be worth coming along.
In addition, it’s a great opportunity for us to meet with you and hear about what’s happening for you in the market and how we can help. There will be time for questions and some one on one time with our team to work through any scenarios or features you want to explore further.
Click on your nearest town below to register.
11 August - Auckland (North Shore)
We look forward to seeing you soon.
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: FAQ – can research ratings be altered?
We hope this explanation can provide more clarity on how our research works.
Our objective is to be a tool for advisers to highlight the material differences between products, rather than a view of ranking them from best to worse, therefore, advisers are able to select their product and provider basket to what they are qualified to advise on (i.e., they can remove providers and alter products where required). However, in reality, price is also a significant factor during the advice process and both our pricing comparison and research rating are used by advisers to justify why a selection is being made - along with other information and views you may have, of course.
For example, ideally an adviser will select all agreed value base products under non-taxable (agreed value).
In this set, Partners Life may have a research rating advantage, but pricing disadvantage, assuming current settings.
If an adviser then decides they want to remove Partners, for whatever reason (perhaps they have no accreditation with them), this removes Partners Life from being shown in the premium comparison however, it would be inaccurate to then bump AIA to 100% because in this specific set Partners Life still has the highest score.
When it comes to Options and Extras packages, in an ideal world, an adviser would select the best products in the set to compare and again will have to consider the pricing comparison and research rating as a package.
Fidelity has a pricing advantage (cheapest in this set) and a research advantage in this example below.
However, removing Fidelity will remove the provider from appearing in the premium comparison, but it will not alter the research comparison – they still have the highest rating in the set and the other companies are benchmarked against this.
We believe it would be inaccurate if advisers were allowed to remove a company to then alter research ratings. They can, however, alter products but have to be able to justify it from a pricing and rating perspective.
We hope this provides some insight into how research ratings work and if there is a specific topic you would like us to share on, please send us an email on info@quotemonster.co.nz
Quality product research database upgrade
We have just uploaded QPR Database version 152 and 152a into our Dropbox folder.
This version of the database includes the following changes:
Changes made in 15.2a:
* ANZ - new policy document effective 06/03/2022
> no rating changes applied
*Revisions made to Medical Amount Scores in V15.2 for:
> Fertility benefit
> Non-surgical benefit
> Oral surgergy benefit
> Overseas treatment
> Physiotherapy
> Pregnancy
> Treatment in Australia
> Surgical benefit
> Recovery benefit
> Minor surgery benefit
Changes made in 15.2:
* Correction made to version summary log (V15.1 released 31-Jan-23) - note should read:
> FSR for PL/BNZ life update from A- to A
* Cigna rebrand to Chubb Life effective 06/03/2023 - no rating changes applied
* Kiwibank rebrand to nib effective 01/06/2023
* MAS - new policy document update for Life & IP effective 01/12/2021
* Business rating for AIA, Asteron, Fidelity, Chubb & Partners:
> TPD
* Specific Injury rating for AIA, Asteron, Chubb & Partners
> Package weighting updated to reflect the addition of SI
* Reviews:
> Medical:
* Exclusions updated for NIB, SX and PL
> IP:
* Insurable Income - rating added for Westpac
* Inflation Adjustment - rating removed for ANZ
> Trauma:
* Instant Buyback for PL Immediate Trauma and Asteron Continuous Trauma
* Heart attack sub item remediation for nib
> TPD:
* Benefit Definition over 65
For advisers the best way to explore the changes is to produce a research report on quotemonster. For product managers please refer to the change logs on the revised database that has been sent to you. For more information please contact one of the research staff.