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.
Legal and regulatory update for the life and health insurance sector
RBNZ warn Quest Insurance Group Limited; APRA publish findings of climate risk survey; The Contracts of Insurance Bill and the Contracts of Insurance (Repeals and Amendments) Bill were read a third time; XRB announce climate and assurance proposals; APRA publish FAQ’s for insurers; ASIC announce enforcement priorities for 2025; FMA release latest podcast; Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ diary released; FMA publish updated calendar of events.
12 Nov 2024 - RBNZ has issued a warning to Quest Insurance Group Limited for failures to comply with the Insurance (Prudential Supervision Act 2010 (IPSA). Quest’s non-compliance included prolonged failures to maintain its minimum non-life solvency margin, and to maintain a statutory fund for its life insurance business. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2024/11/reserve-bank-issues-warning-to-quest-insurance-group-limited
12 Nov 2024 - RBNZ have updated their research agenda for the 2024-25 year. https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/our-research-programme
13 Nov 2024 - APRA has published the findings of its second climate risk self-assessment survey. The findings provide deeper insights into how regulated entities identify, manage and disclose the financial risks of climate change and align their practices with the Prudential Practice Guide CPG 229 Climate Change Financial Risks. https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-releases-survey-results-assessing-management-of-risks-associated-climate
13 Nov 2024 - The Contracts of Insurance Bill and the Contracts of Insurance (Repeals and Amendments) Bill were read a third time. https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/daily-progress-in-the-house/daily-progress-for-wednesday-13-november-2024/
13 Nov 2024 - The External Reporting Board 2024 Climate and Assurance Proposals announced. The External Reporting Board approved three of the four proposals relating to amendments to climate and assurance standards:
A one year extension to the adoption provision for scope 3 GHG emissions disclosures
A one year extension to the adoption provision for anticipated financial impacts disclosures
A new one year adoption provision relating to the assurance of scope 3 GHG emissions
The proposal to delay transition planning by an additional year was not adopted, on the basis of hearing strong user demand for this information.
The amending standards will have an application date of 1 January 2024, meaning they are applicable for accounting periods that begin on or after this date.
https://www.xrb.govt.nz/news/latest-news/
14 Nov 2024 - APRA has published one new frequently asked question (FAQ), updated 19 and deleted 11 FAQs on measurement of capital for Authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) and insurers. https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-publishes-new-and-updated-faqs-on-capital-for-adis-and-insurers
14 Nov 2024 - ASIC announced its enforcement priorities for 2025, capturing the key areas where it will direct resources and expertise in the coming year.
Misconduct exploiting superannuation savings
Unscrupulous property investment schemes
Failures by insurers to deal fairly and in good faith with customers
Strengthening investigation and prosecution of insider trading
Business models designed to avoid consumer credit protections
Misconduct impacting small businesses and their creditors
Debt management and collection misconduct
Licensee failures to have adequate cyber-security protections
Greenwashing and misleading conduct involving ESG claims
Member services failures in the superannuation sector
Auditor misconduct
Used car finance sold to vulnerable consumers by finance providers
14 Nov 2024 - The FMA release latest podcast 'Navigating KiwiSaver Episode 2: KiwiSaver Funds'. https://www.fma.govt.nz/library/podcast/navigating-kiwisaver-episode-2/
15 Nov 2024 - Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Hon Andrew Bayly October 2024 diary released with the following potential financial services sector related meetings noted:
• 2 Oct 2024 – MEET: Fintech roundtable (invited attendees)
• 14 Oct 2024 – MEET: Kiwisaver group (invited attendees)
• 22 Oct 2024 – SPEAK: Financial Services Federation Conference (conference attendees)
• 23 Oct 2024 – MEET: Commerce Commission (Commerce Commission Officials)
• 24 Oct 2024 – MEET: Banking Ombudsman (Miriam Dean, Nicola Sladden)
15 Nov 2024 - The FMA publish an updated calendar of events. https://www.fma.govt.nz/library/events/calendar-of-events/
Deepfake scams on the rise
Research commissioned by MasterCard has found that 29% of New Zealanders and 18% of NZ businesses have been targeted by deepfake scams in the past year.
Research commissioned by MasterCard has found that 29% of New Zealanders and 18% of NZ businesses have been targeted by deepfake scams in the past year. Deepfake scams use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to impersonate individuals, with the aim of stealing their targets’ money or personal information.
Deepfakes scams can utilise video, images and audio and can look increasingly convincing. Confidence levels in the ability to correctly identify deepfakes are low, with only 12% of respondents confident they would be able to detect a deepfake scam. Deepfakes are eroding trust in public figures and digital platforms, with 41% of individuals being more sceptical towards celebrities and influencers; 61% of kiwis being less trusting of social media platforms; 40% of New Zealanders being less trusting of emails and 37% of respondents being less trusting of phone calls compared to the previous year.
Some steps businesses are taking to address these risks include employing identification verification for accessing sensitive information, offering cybersecurity training and conducting training on financial transactions.
More news:
mySolutions webinar 'How non-PHARMAC drugs are covered in our Private Medical offering' 23 October
Chubb’s Underwriting Click to Chat function is live on Adviser Hub
AIA health premiums increasing from 1 November
AIA release latest version of Underwriting Guide
Link Financial Group appoints Luke Roberts and Quentin Holmes as national growth managers
Tony Vidler talks about the importance of focusing on existing client base
The FSC release their latest Money & You Report
The FSC have released their latest Money & You Report, ‘Consumer Resilience and the Road to Prosperity’. It paints a picture of New Zealander’s who have struggled with the cost-of-living crisis and are feeling financially pressured to the extent they have changed their spending habits, decreased their savings and have concerns about their ongoing ability to service debt.
The FSC have released their latest Money & You Report, ‘Consumer Resilience and the Road to Prosperity’. In all it paints a picture of New Zealander’s who have struggled with the cost-of-living crisis and are feeling financially pressured to the extent they have changed their spending habits, decreased their savings and have concerns about their ongoing ability to service debt.
Some key findings include:
49% are somewhat or very unconfident in the overall economy (up from 45% in 2023), with women older generations and Europeans more likely to be unconfident in the economy. Those who are receiving financial advice are more positive about the impact of the economic climate.
94% of respondents are concerned about financial issues, with the cost of living cited as respondents’ top financial concern (66% very concerned), followed by inflation (51% very concerned) and house prices (45% very concerned).
Financial pressures have resulted in a change in spending habits, with buying cheaper groceries (57%) and cutting back on takeaways (55%) and treat purchases (49%) the most common changes. Concerningly some New Zealanders have reported skipping meals (17%), limiting heating (24%) and avoiding medical treatment or skipping medication (16%).
31% of New Zealanders were unhappy with their financial situation this year (up from 22% in 2023 and 25% in 2022).
There has been a drop in the number of retirees with more than 10 years of retirement savings, and an increase in those with less than one year of current retirement savings.
82% hold investments, with KiwiSaver the most likely held investment type.
Troubling KiwiSaver trends include average member weekly contributions dropping 7.8% (comparing 2023 to 2021); hardship withdrawals are at an all-time high; the KiwiSaver gender gap continues to increase, now sitting at a $7,450 average balance difference between males and females. Most worryingly, the average KiwiSaver member who has been contributing all their working life may not have enough to support them during retirement, according to Massey University Retirement Expenditure Guidelines.
Those who have struggled to make recent debt payments have been more proactive, with 29% reaching out to their bank (up from 20% in 2023) or speaking to family or friends (38% up from 28%).
Research was conducted via online survey, with 2,002 respondents completing the data during March 2024.
More news:
Chubb Life Chief Executive Gail Costa is to retire in April 2025
Anna Schubert talks through self-development tips for advisers
Tony Vidler suggests how advisers can create compelling offers
Clive Fernandes writes of how AI can help personalise financial advice
‘Inspiring Success’ event takes place on 7 November in Auckland
mySolutions webinar 'SimpleWills and your estate' 11 September
Debate whether it is it time to boost KiwiSaver contributions at FSC pre-conference session
Value For Money report highlights top performing ethical KiwiSaver funds
Lloyd Burr writes about how hard it is to start a new bank in NZ
Inland Revenue is proposing to make fees charged for fund management exempt from GST
Should more employers be looking at offering more flexible working options?
Increasingly, organisations are seeing the benefits of offering more flexible working options, in terms of productivity output, being able to attract a more diverse range of employees and employee satisfaction.
Increasingly, organisations are seeing the benefits of offering more flexible working options, in terms of productivity output, being able to attract a more diverse range of employees and employee satisfaction.
Stats NZ data shows that in 2023, 81% of organisations offered flexible working hours, up from 57% of organisations in 2018. In 2023, 77% of organisations offered part-time work roles, up from 53% in 2018.
Kiwibank economist, Sabrina Delgado, highlighted flexible work’s impact on the wider economy,
“Whether it’s working around school hours or the location of work, greater work flexibility perhaps has the biggest economic impact on improving the labour market outcomes and productivity.”
Infometrics chief executive and principal economist Brad Olsen said,
“Increasing participation even further can be supported by removing barriers to work for different groups, like parents, while still allowing them to do their parental duties without as much compromise as before.”
Dr Ellen Ford, the creator of #workschoolhours movement, said,
“There are a huge amount of parents who would absolutely love to work in an organisation that provides a school hours framework and they would add immense value to the organisation.”
“One of the economic benefits is that it actually allows organisations to tap into a massively underutilised section of the workforce.”
“If businesses are struggling to attract and retain great talent, one of the ways they can do that is actually offer roles that work within school hours.”
“People on part time contracts are typically the most productive in the workforce. They just get their stuff done in a shorter amount of time.”
It seems like flexible work options are here to stay. An international survey of more than 500 CEO’s around hybrid working, found 91% had adopted hybrid working and 74% said a full-time office return is not a business priority. 73% of CEO’s agreed that hybrid work allows them to attract the best workers and 76% saw improved staff retention since offering flexibility to employees.
More news:
Tony Vidler posits why advisers face fee resistance and how to turn it around
Finalists for the FSC Awards 2024 announced
KiwiSaver investors advised to ignore sharemarket turmoil and stay the course
Hays publish salary guide
Hays have published their Salary Guide for FY24/25.
Hays have published their Salary Guide for FY24/25. Of note, the extreme skills shortage is lessening yet there is a hesitancy for businesses to take on new hires, due to macro-economic conditions.
Their survey data highlights the importance of brand reputation; diversity, equity and inclusion policies; and environmental, social and governance strategies in attracting talent. Once an employee starts, team culture and job security are the biggest reasons an employee plans to stay with their employer. A huge 82% of employees said that team culture is the most important factor in their decision to stay with their current employer, and 64% said that continued remote or hybrid working was important. More than 77% of employees are currently looking or planning to look for a new job within the next 12 months, with the rising cost of living being the most cited reason (64%).
Currently, 97% of organisations offered a hybrid working model, with 74% not expecting their hybrid work offering to change in the year ahead. This tracks closely with employee wants, with 92% preferring a hybrid mode of working.
86% of organisations are planning on offering pay rises in the year ahead, though the value of the salary increases is dropping, at odds with employee expectations, with 61% of employees expecting an increase of more than 3%. 71% of employees stated that a pay rise was the most important factor to their career in the year ahead but benefits also featured highly in priorities – with learning and developing technical skills (63%) and being able to work flexibly (54%) being important to people.
The survey had 15,324 respondents across Australia and New Zealand, across both employers (6,461) and employees (8,863).
More news:
mySolutions webinar 'nib - Navigating Health Insurance' 10 July
Financial Advice NZ Professional Ethics Workshop 30 July
Aplus Compliance has merged with Strategi Compliance
The Co-operative Bank share $2.5 million with 135,000 of their customers
Westpac offer financial support to customers affected by the extreme weather events
TAP looking for a Group Senior BAS Accountant
Select committee against bill to limit use of KiwiSaver as part of pay package
Steve Wright identifies areas where FAPs and advisers need to improve
Steve Wright has examined the FMA’s FAP monitoring report and gone through the findings to highlight areas advisers and FAPs need to keep their eyes on.
While the FMA was for the most part happy with the results of their monitoring visits to around 60 FAPs, they did highlight a number of gaps where improvement is needed. In particular, the FMA identified ‘tick-box’ approaches to compliance as a root cause of some of these gaps.
Some areas that were identified as needing improvement were proper oversight of advice; identifying and working to close knowledge gaps; a considered approach to continuing professional development (CPD) with the identified learning achieved and recorded; some situations where the advice given was ‘unsatisfactory’; consideration of clients’ future needs.
More daily news:
mySolutions webinar 'Camilla Tumai, Bizcap Offering' 26 June
Pinnacle Life has been shortlisted for the 2024 Best Places to Work Awards
Southern Cross Healthcare supports Bowel Cancer New Zealand’s awareness campaign
Southern Cross Healthcare organises volunteer beach cleanups
Tony Vidler discusses the importance of an individual brand
TAP introduce the TAP Adviser Steering Committee
The US surgeon general seeks tobacco-like warning labels on social media platforms
Legal and regulatory update for the life and health insurance sector
APRA releases prudential practice guide; FMA publishes info for smaller firms on fair conduct programmes and applying for CoFI licence; RBNZ release updated design proposals for their business expectations survey; XRB launch Standards Navigator.
13 Jun 2024 - The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its finalised prudential practice guide to help banks, insurers and superannuation trustees strengthen their management of operational risk and improve business continuity planning. https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-finalises-cross-industry-guidance-on-operational-resilience
14 Jun 2024 - The Financial Markets Authority has published an information sheet specifically for smaller firms to assist in establishing and maintaining a Fair Conduct Programme (FCP) and applying for a Financial Institution (CoFI) licence. https://www.fma.govt.nz/news/all-releases/media-releases/fma-provides-additional-support-to-smaller-firms-for-cofi-licensing/
17 Jun 2024 - The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has released Tara-ā-Umanga Business Expectations Survey: Design proposals following consultation and pilot, which outlines lessons learnt and resulting design proposals for their new Business Expectations Survey, BES, Tara-ā-Umanga. Changes include making the survey shorter and quicker for businesses to fill in; questions will focus on inflation expectations, wages, and unemployment; they will survey businesses in the primary industry; and they will not include very small businesses (those with fewer than 6 employees). https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/surveys/expectations-survey-information-for-survey-participants/business-expectations-survey-design-and-development
18 Jun 2024 - The External Reporting Board has launched the XRB Standards Navigator, which takes static PDF versions of XRB standards and presents them in a more accessible, dynamic and user- friendly format. https://standards.xrb.govt.nz/standards-navigator/
New Research Deep Dive Session introduced
Join Quotemonster’s research team as we meet up online and have a discussion on a research topic.
Join Quotemonster’s research team as we meet up online and have a discussion on a research topic – our focus in this meeting is Comprehensive Trauma, other types of trauma will be discussed at a later time.
In this session, we will explain our trauma rating, any changes that have been made to these products in the last quarter and some research reviews we have in progress. This is Q&A style and while we have prepared an agenda, the aim is for advisers to come along and ‘ask us anything’ about trauma, provide claims or general feedback on the topic.
Our goal is to focus on a specific research topic each time we meet, show advisers where they can find related infographics or resources that can then be shared to clients, and to have a sneak peek into the QPR database.
Prerequisites: This session is for advisers who already have a basic understanding of our research methodology and would like to deepen their knowledge, we highly recommend attending our Introduction to Quotemonster prior to joining our Research Deep Dive.
If you would like to attend our first session scheduled on Thursday, 13 June 2024 11:30 am-12:30 pm, please email us info@quotemonster.co.nz and we will send you a calendar invite. Furthermore, if there is a topic you would like us to prioritise, please submit your request to the above mentioned email.
We look forward to seeing you there!
FSC report finds 70% of kiwis are worried about money
The Financial Services Council’s (FSC) latest Financial Resilience Index tracker has found New Zealanders to be increasingly under financial pressure.
The Financial Services Council’s (FSC) Financial Resilience Index tracker has found New Zealanders to be increasingly under financial pressure.
The Index tracker revealed 70% of New Zealander's are worrying about money daily, weekly or monthly, the highest level since 2020 which reached 60%.
Inflation and interest rates are concerning New Zealanders, at 89.6% and 75.6% respectively.
Confidence in job security has started to fall, down to 85% from a high of 89% in 2023.
More kiwis are reporting having personal debt than last year, up 6%.
More kiwis have one month or less of savings on hand to maintain their current lifestyle should they lose their job.
60% of non-homeowners have reported meeting living expenses is somewhat or very difficult.
48.5% were very or somewhat unconfident with the overall economy at the moment. 76.4% of respondents were somewhat or very concerned about house prices.
The survey took place in March 2024, with 2002 respondents. FSC members can download the full report in the FSC members area.
More daily news:
Fidelity Life are running e-app training webinars
FAMNZ held launch party, another in Christchurch May 30
BNZ win Canstar 2024 Innovation Excellence Award for their Digital International Payments
Partners Life pricing and product changes effective 22 April 2024
We are pleased to confirm that the rate changes to Partners Life medical cover, effective 22 April 2024 are live on Quotemonster.
Dear Quotemonster users,
We are pleased to confirm that the rate changes to Partners Life medical cover, effective 22 April 2024 are live on Quotemonster.
Partners Life also announced a range of enhancements, please click here to find a summary of their product enhancements and clarifications. Today, we were provided with the updated policy documents (v19.1), and will be able to provide a detailed overview on how these enhancements affect our research ratings, once the wordings have been systematically reviewed.
Rest assured we will post a notification once these ratings are live on Quotemonster.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Happy Crunching!
