Partners Life’s new training module ‘Fair Treatment of Customers’

Partners Life have introduced a new training module ‘Fair treatment of Customers’, to help advisers be better prepared for the new Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI) regulations coming into effect on 31 March. The module is worth approximately 0.5 hours of CPD and is available on the Partners Life Academy.

Partners Life developed two different new eLearn modules on the fair treatment of customers – one for staff and one for independent financial advisers.  The staff version focuses on how the fair conduct principle applies to daily work and interactions with clients and advisers.  The adviser version includes more information on the shared responsibility for customers that is held between Partners Life as the product provider and the adviser who has a deeper understanding of the client’s personal situation and financial circumstances.  Partners Life appreciate that advisers are familiar with the new CoFI legislation, however, they wanted to share their expectations in a format that would be easy to read and included a short quiz to test their understanding.

By the end of March, a customer-friendly version of their fair conduct programme and information on how Partners Life apply the fair conduct principle will be available on their website.

More news:

Southern Cross Health Insurance funds pilot for access to The Prostate Clinic

Momentum Life offer customers 20% off online wills in partnership with Public Trust

FMA ad campaign educating consumers about Fair Conduct Programme to launch soon

Experts advocate raising KiwiSaver minimum contributions to 4% from both employees and employers

Monsters in March off to a great start

We’ve kicked off our Monsters in March event series, holding the first session in Remuera on 18 March and the second session in Christchurch on 20 March. Thanks to the 150+ advisers that showed up to hear about personal insurance, business insurance or KiwiSaver advice. And thank you to all of our sponsors and speakers for making it happen.

Here’s a few photos from the events so far.

We’ll be holding a last on the North Shore in Auckland on 25 March – hope to see you there!

More news:

Fidelity Life will host a workshop at FANZ conference

mySolutions Member Benefits day is on 19 March

mySolutions webinar 'Artificial Intelligence: is it for you?' 26 March

Southern Cross Health Insurance appoint Russell Simpson Chief of Healthcare Partnerships

Registrations open for the Million Dollar Round Table’s Annual Meeting in Miami in June

Advisers originate about 70% of Kiwibank’s mortgages by volume

TAP are looking for a Senior .NET Core Developer

Unimed CEO to step down

UniMed has announced that CEO Louise Zacest will be stepping down at the end of March. UniMed Chair Peter Tynan said the organisation was deeply grateful for Louise’s leadership over the past four years.

“Under her guidance, UniMed has become New Zealand’s third largest health insurer, expanded into health & safety and mental wellbeing, and significantly strengthened its internal capabilities.”

Lynne Hayman has been appointed as interim CEO, for the period 31 March to 31 October 2025, while a recruitment process for a new CEO is undertaken. Hayman joined UniMed late last year as Interim Chief Operating Officer.

More news:

Fidelity Life's A- (Excellent) financial strength rating affirmed by AM Best

AIA NZ is recruiting for a new head of investments

AIA Group delivered US$6,605 million OPAT in the year ended 31 December 2024.

PPS Mutual is preparing to launch in New Zealand

The FMA contractor budget more than $13 million over the 2023/24 reporting year

What’s the biggest health claim paid for a procedure?

The health insurance industry has been experiencing a time of rising medical costs, where both volume of claims and inflation have been increasing. We’ve taken a closer look at individual claims values that a few insurers have released recently. As you can see from the data below, the costs of individual claims can be astronomical.

nib regularly publish their top 5 health claims by month. RiskinfoNZ has an article collating historical nib’s top health claims by month here.

nib’s top health claims for January 2025

Treatment                     Cost              Gender              Age

Spinal surgery               $101,000         Male                   16

Cardiac surgery           $85,000           Male                   46

Cardiac surgery           $56,000           Male                   70

Cardiac surgery           $54,000           Female               70

Digestive surgery          $53,000          Male                   72

nib’s top health claims for December 2024

Treatment                      Cost                Gender               Age

Cardiac surgery            $103,000          Male                   72

Cancer surgery             $102,000          Male                   77

Cardiac surgery            $93,000            Male                   80

Cardiac surgery            $88,000            Male                   76

Spinal surgery                $87,000            Male                   48

But these do not top the charts of what we are currently aware. Southern Cross’s most expensive surgical claims were $256,165 for a spinal fusion procedure and $127,191 for a breast reconstruction.

While Partners Life don’t release a similar monthly overview of their top claims, their ‘The story behind our claims’ slideshow highlights their largest single payouts since 2011. The most expensive claims paid out were a whopping $1.6 million+ for Total and Permanent Disability or Income cover; $2.9million +for Life cover; $3.2million + for Trauma cover and $982,000+ for Private Medical Cover.

While the majority of claims won’t cost anywhere near as much, what used to be ample caps of some older medical values don’t seem so rosy in light of recent inflation and surging claims costs. Yet we haven’t seen any insurers coming out and indexing claims caps. We think that’s wrong, and we’ll offer a score boost to the first insurer who offers indexed caps.

What types of claims have you heard of and how did they go? We would love to hear more from you, especially if you are a Quotemonster subscriber, through our adviser claims experience tool (check the side menu when you are next logged in).

More news:

mySolutions webinar 'What got you here, won't get you there' 19 March

Steve Wright on potential implications of government’s plan to use private health care facilities for public health treatments

Good Returns has an interesting article by Steve Wright considering some of the implications of what may happen if the government goes ahead with their reported plan to consider using private health care facilities to reduce elective surgery waiting lists. Aside from the obvious benefits of kiwis on public health waiting lists potentially getting treated quicker, Wright considers some potential downsides, from reduced pressure to improve public sector capacity, to the private sector becoming overwhelmed or people ditching their health insurance and the private sectors viability coming into question.

We think these risks are low, given the scale of the intervention proposed by Minister Brown – just $50m to be spent between March and the end of June. For context, ACC will purchase around $500m in surgery in the 2023/24 year, and the total New Zealand Health budget is circa $16.6 billion. For an individual who gets a needed surgery a little faster, we are delighted, but this intervention is unlikely to make a big impact.

More news:

Partners Life new training module ‘Fair Treatment of Customers’

Fidelity Life offers drought-affected Taranaki customers premium relief

The FMA is on track to approve 77 licence applications under CoFI regime

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is reassessing the capital held by banks

FSC release latest research report ‘Women and Finance in New Zealand’

The Financial Services Council (FSC) have released their ‘Insights and Trends: Women and finance in New Zealand’ 2025 report. With International Women’s Day being celebrated this month, the report aims to better understand how women and finances interact. Some of the key findings include:

• FSC research from December 2021 found that over 80% of female respondents considered their financial wellbeing as moderate to very low, with just under 64% of respondents reporting they worried about money at least monthly. By 2024, 70% of women were reporting worrying about money on a daily or weekly (in comparison, 51% of men reported worrying about money on a daily or weekly basis in 2024).

• Despite reported underconfidence, FSC research has found that women are more financially literate than men overall, with 66% of women answering at least 75% of financial trivia questions correct, compared to 57% of men.

• Women (61%) are more likely to be in debt than men (43%).

• Women are more likely to be working part-time, have full-time home duties or be unemployed (43%) than the equivalent for men (14%).

• 58% of women say they are not particularly financially prepared or not financially prepared at all for retirement.

Last Year, Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission found that the retirement gap between men and women has not improved, remaining fixed at a 25% difference since 2023. FSC CEO Kirk Hope said

"The current KiwiSaver settings disadvantages those who take career breaks, disproportionately affecting women who pause their earnings to care for or start their families.

It’s encouraging to see the Government make steps to start to address this, with those receiving paid parental leave from July 2024 being able to choose to make KiwiSaver contributions, and Inland Revenue making employer contributions of 3%.”

More news:

nib release their top 5 health claims for January 2025

nib announce nib Balance – a new health tool integrated into the my nib app

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired RMA General Limited

Shaw Financial Insurance & Investments is merging with Apex Advice

AMP are looking for a Product Lead to join their Retail team

Government agrees to progressively lower the age of eligibility for bowel cancer screening tests to 58

Munich Re delve into AI’s impact on Healthcare

As part of Munich Re’s Life Science Report, they have investigated the projected impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on healthcare, from disease prevention to diagnosis to treatment as well as the implications for efficiency gains.

While the news is mostly good (improved mortality, better prevention, earlier diagnoses, individualised therapies), it does create some challenges for life and health insurers. With earlier diagnoses and the emergence of new disease classifications, critical illness insurance products will need continuous updating. Claims management and policy development will become more complex, as genetic and molecular diagnosis becomes more routine, requiring a higher level of medical expertise. Overdiagnosis (the detection of diseases that don’t impact on mortality and/or morbidity) and antiselection may become problematic.

AI will also create opportunities for insurers. Insights from accessing and analysing vast datasets including electronic health records, imaging and other biomedical sources will transform the understanding of the root causes of disease and in turn allow underwriting to become more accurate and sophisticated. Wellness interventions will be able to be better targeted and increase in scope and effectiveness.

More news:

Profile of Josh Bronkhorst, CEO of Link Financial Group

Entries for Insurance Business’ annual Top Insurance Employers close 14 March

InvestNow’s Retirement Readiness Index recorded an average confidence level of 50.4%

Kiwibank reports NPAT of $92 million for the six months ending 31 December 2024

New framework moves beyond traditional reliance on BMI as a sole indicator of obesity

Chubb Life New Zealand appoints new Chief Executive Officer

Paula ter Brake has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Chubb Life New Zealand, effective 5 May, subject to regulatory approvals. Paula has 30 years of experience and the retail banking and insurance industries and was most recently Executive General Manager, Consumer Brands for IAG New Zealand.

Paul Brock, Board Chair at Chubb Life, said

“Paula’s proven track record in driving growth along with transforming large businesses will bring real value to our customers, partners and our people. She is recognised for her dynamic leadership style and success in driving strategic initiatives and will play a key role as we continue the growth and success of our business.”

More news:

Russell Hutchinson's outlook on the life and health market for 2025

mySolutions webinar 'Case Study - Client engagement and fact-finding process ' 12 March

Sophie Sargent joins Apex Advice as Operations Manager

The FMA is looking for a Senior Adviser, Media Relations

Paul Brownsey says there should be more downward pressure on KiwiSaver fees

Amy Florian says advisers’ relationships skills are more important than money management skills

Government announces healthcare boost

Legal and regulatory update for the life and health insurance sector

24 Feb 2025 - Hon Scott Simpson appointed Minister of ACC and Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/minister/hon-scott-simpson

27 Feb 2025 - The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has confirmed it will proceed with a public consultation on capital settings for annuity products. This aligns with APRA’s goal to support life insurers to increase the availability of retirement products for retirees, as outlined in its Corporate Plan 2024-25. https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-confirms-consultation-on-changes-to-capital-requirements-for-annuity

27 Feb 2025 - From 31 March 2025, the Financial Markets (Conduct of Institutions) Amendment Act (CoFI) requires banks, insurers and non-bank deposit takers to be licensed to continue providing relevant services to consumers in New Zealand.  https://financialmarketsauthority.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=r&c=79CE1F6CD0C81FF2&ID=72C2272F1CE40B142540EF23F30FEDED&temp=False&tx=0&source=Report

27 Feb 2025 - The FMA will be publishing the financial institutions regulatory returns final question set along with a Summary of Key Themes, including the submissions received from the consultation, and a Regulatory Impact Statement, by end of March 2025. https://financialmarketsauthority.createsend.com/campaigns/reports/viewCampaign.aspx?d=r&c=79CE1F6CD0C81FF2&ID=72C2272F1CE40B142540EF23F30FEDED&temp=False&tx=0&source=Report

28 Feb 2025 - APRA release quarterly insurance statistics for December 2024. https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-releases-quarterly-insurance-statistics-for-december-2024

3 Mar 2025 - RBNZ plan to commence ongoing quarterly publication of the new Tara-ā-Umanga Business Expectations Survey in mid-May 2025 (for the June quarter) in advance of the 28 May Monetary Policy Statement. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/surveys/expectations-survey-information-for-survey-participants/business-expectations-survey-design-and-development

GlobalData projects the life insurance market in New Zealand will grow

GlobalData, an international data and analytics company, has projected the New Zealand life insurance market to grow from $5.9 billion in 2024 to $8.3 billion in 2029, equating to a compound annual growth rate of 7.0%, in terms of gross written premium. It expects the New Zealand life insurance market will reach $6.4 billion in gross written premiums in 2025.

The largest driver of growth is expected to be life personal accident and health, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 6.9% between 2025 and 2029 driven by rising healthcare expenditure and corresponding premium increases.

GlobalData puts the increased demand down to factors including an aging population, heightened health awareness and the rising cost of living, which have increased the need for financial protection, though they caveat their projections, saying high unemployment and inflation could pose risks to this growth.

More news:

Applications for Fidelity Life’s Career Connect 2025 intake are open

The ‘Get AIA Vitality and Start Thriving’ brand campaign is back