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.
Changing business demographics opens up opportunities for advisers
Stats NZ’s latest business demography statistics (as at February 2023) paints a promising picture of New Zealand’s economic landscape. With more new businesses and a rise in employment, opportunities abound for insurance advisers specialising in Business Risk Protection products.
Stats NZ’s latest business demography statistics (as at February 2023) paints a promising picture of New Zealand’s economic landscape. With more new businesses and a rise in employment, opportunities abound for insurance advisers specialising in Business Risk Protection products.
Key highlights include:
· The number of enterprises in NZ is following an upward trajectory, with 605,000 enterprises in February 2023, up 1.8% from February 2022. This is on top of a 5.3% increase in the year to February 2022.
· The number of paid employees in these enterprises (not an official employment statistic) was 2.5 million, up 3% from February 2022.
· These enterprises operated across 641,560 business locations, up 1.4% from February 2022.
There has been a marked increase in new businesses across a range of sectors, indicating a healthy and growing economy. The data also reveals a positive trend in employment, with employees in large enterprises up 5.9% from February 2022.
Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment figures show 196,584 people entered NZ on work visas in the 12 months to September, up dramatically from 39,501 in the 12 months to September 2022. The arrival of these overseas workers further increases the pool of workers available and makes it much easier for employers to fill any vacancies.
Certain industries, such as construction; professional, scientific and technical services; and health care and social assistance industries, have shown significant growth. These sectors often have specialised insurance requirements, like protecting shareholder needs or covering key people within an organisation, providing a niche market for advisers.
Quality Product Research Ltd have recently completed independent research on Business Insurance lump-sum products, putting a wealth of information at advisers’ fingertips in order to make well-informed recommendations. With disability products soon to be included, advisers can offer a comprehensive suite of options to their clients.
Advicemonster has functionality that allows users to streamline the process of creating Business Statements of Advice (SOAs), speeding up the time spent on admin and freeing up more time to spend with clients. Please get in touch if you’d like a sample copy of a Business SOA. Advicemonster’s tools assist advisers in conducting a Fact Find and Needs Analysis and being able to offer highly personalised solutions.
The combination of up-to-date research and specialised tools allows advisers to educate new businesses on effective risk mitigation strategies. This is particularly crucial for sole traders and SMEs that may not yet be aware of the full range of risks they face.
To find out more about what Advicemonster can do for you, please contact Aneel Ravji on 0212160905 or ask us about our next online training sessions.
Research finds those in disadvantaged neighbourhoods have to travel further to reach public green spaces
As section sizes continue to decrease and more people end up living in homes with little to no backyards, are we inadvertently causing further deprivation for those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Newsroom conducted some research using mobile phone data investigating the ease of access to green spaces. They measured distances between homes and the nearest park and found that people living in neighbourhoods with a higher concentration of social housing had further to travel to get to a park than people from neighbourhoods with minimal social housing.
Extensive research has shown that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are at a higher risk of health problems because of their social and economic circumstances, and the lack of access to green spaces in cities is a significant factor contributing to these health disparities. Limited access to green spaces means limited opportunities for physical activity, which can have detrimental consequences, and consequently strain our social and healthcare systems and our collective wellbeing.
It doesn’t seem a great leap of logic to think that in densely populated areas, there should be more access to public parks. It makes me wonder, is unequal access to green spaces contributing to health disparities? And if so, is there a moral imperative for local and national government to act to provide more equitable access to these public spaces?
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Swiss Re reports on mortality trends
Swiss Re’s latest report, which can be found here - The future of life expectancy: Forecasting long-term mortality trends for insurance, investigates life expectancy trends, developments and medical advancements that have contributed to rising life expectancy and estimates what the future causes of death trends will be.
Stats NZ shows that life expectancy at birth in 1955 was 68 for men and 73 for women. By 2019 that had increased dramatically to 80 for men and 83.5 for women.
Recent drivers of big increases in life expectancies have included improved diagnoses and treatment of cardiovascular disease and people quitting smoking. Since 2010, in many developed areas mortality improvement has slowed or plateaued.
In America, life expectancy has declined in recent periods, due to factors including unequal access to healthcare; high levels of opioid addiction and death rates; societal obesity; and high levels of deaths from violent crimes. Healthcare is so expensive, 28% of Americans said they skipped medical care due to costs, with 42% of uninsured Americans skipping medical care because of costs.
High socioeconomic groups in America generally have higher mortality improvements than the overall population, with continuing divergence in mortality trends between those at either end of the socioeconomic scale.
Socioeconomic status is a major determinant of mortality risk in many mature markets, with the risk of dying inversely proportionate to income levels. Large international studies have shown that individuals of lower socioeconomic status have greater premature mortality than those with high socioeconomic status. Low socioeconomic status is also associated with a 2.1-year reduction in life expectancy between the ages of 40–85.
Although, by comparison with the United States, New Zealanders have good life expectancy, there are many countries where it is higher. We continue to lose many years of life expectancy to treatable conditions. Chatswood examined possible life expectancy gains by comparing death rates for the top ten causes of early death with those in other OECD countries, and identifying the gains that could be made by improving mortality to the level of the average of the OECD and the best in the OECD. A summary of the research is included here. If you would like to obtain a copy of the full mortality improvement report, please contact either Kelly Pulham at kelly@quotemonster.co.nz or Russell Hutchinson Russell.hutchinson@chatswood.co.nz.
The report identifies neurogenerative and aging diseases such as Alzheimer’s to become a more significant cause of death.
The risk factors of dementia are varied, with 40% falling into the range of being potentially modifiable behaviours and activities throughout life (see Figure 10). The remaining 60% of the risk remains unknown, likely comprising genetic factors, as yet unidentified lifestyle factors and other determinants. Higher incidence in future could be influenced by a growing proportion of people with a high BMI leading to Type 2 diabetes, along with air pollutants and consumption of processed foods.
Swiss Re expect lifestyle factors including rising rates of obesity and diabetes to put future life expectancy gains at risk.
The World Obesity Federation estimates that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men will be living with obesity by 2030, equating to one billion people globally. If the US continues on its current trajectory, it would imply that 90% of its population could be overweight or obese by 2042.
They also highlight emerging risks as a future threat to life expectancy, whether through known risks like climate change and antimicrobial resistance or as yet unknown risks such as new diseases or some other development.
Future drivers of improvements in mortality are predicted to be due to advanced cancer diagnostics and the evolution of personalised, precision medicine. Swiss Re write that aging-related and neurodegenerative diseases will likely benefit from improvement in treatments over the next couple of decades. Lifestyle and behaviour modifications to improve nutrition and physical activity could have a substantial impact on diabetes and obesity-related mortality.
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