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.

Kelly O Kelly O

Chubb Life appoints new CFO

Chubb Life has appointed Jaco Grobbelaar as its chief financial officer.

Chubb Life has appointed Jaco Grobbelaar as its chief financial officer. Grobbelaar has more than 25 years of experience in the insurance and financial services sectors. Grobbelaar was most recently at Partners Life, where he led the finance function team across a range of activities to help strengthen organisational resilience and growth.

Chubb Life chief executive Gail Costa said

"Jaco has a strong track record of optimising financial planning and reporting processes, driving efficiency and successfully leading teams through change. I'm really looking forward to having Jaco on board and have every confidence that his expertise, experience and leadership will further strengthen our senior leadership team."

 

More news:

mySolutions roadshow 'Persistence: it's your Superpower' in May

Fidelity Life publish February turnaround times

Partners Life webinar 'Quote for Alteration Changes' 3 April

nib delay launch of Ultimate Life & Living Insurance suite

Southern Cross Healthcare looking for a People and Culture Business Partner

The FMA is looking for a Head of Deposit Taking

Advisers could offer business advice to clients with SMEs

Simon Papa assesses whether FMA’s  “Outcomes-focused regulation” guide has resolved misgivings expressed by submitters

FMA proposal to cut 20-plus jobs amid cost-saving measures

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Kelly O Kelly O

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.

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

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Kelly O Kelly O

Monsters in March off to a great start

We’ve kicked off our Monsters in March event series, thanks to the attendees, sponsors and speakers for making it happen.

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.

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Kelly O Kelly O

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.

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

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Kelly O Kelly O

Chubb Life NZ appoints new Head of Claims

Chubb Life NZ has announced that Reeta Anthony has been appointed as its new Head of Claims, effective immediately.

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Kelly O Kelly O

New Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society appointed

Chris Black has been appointed Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society (Health Society).

Chris Black has been appointed Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society (Health Society). Black joined the Health Society Board in 2021. Black has held a range of leadership positions over the course of his career, including Chief Executive of Farmers Mutual Group, ICNZ President and Commissioner of the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme. He is currently a Trustee of the Southern Cross Health Trust, Chair of the Natural Hazards Commission and Rabobank New Zealand, and a Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation.

Outgoing Chair Murray Jordan retired at the organisation’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week.

 

More news:

Reminder advisors must take note of supervisor guidelines on AML/CFT

Empower Women Networking Events 6 & 11 March

FSC seek feedback on FMA's proposed exemption for Climate Reporting Entities

Surgeons at Southern Cross North Harbour Hospital win research award

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Kelly O Kelly O

The FSC has released its latest Money & You research

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has released their latest research report, Money & You: Managing Risk Through Challenging Times, which explores the attitudes of New Zealanders towards risk management. Some of the key findings are below.

  • Only 41% of respondents had life insurance, 39% had health/medical insurance, 23% had trauma/critical illness insurance, 18% had total and permanent disability insurance.

  • For the 12 months to 30 September 2024, FSC industry data showed 1,521,740 health insurance policies and 4,145,287 life insurance products (one person may have more than one policy e.g. life insurance, income protection insurance and total and permanent disability insurance policies).

  • The majority (66%) who have life and health insurance consider it value for money.

  • The biggest drivers of taking out life and health insurance policies are peace of mind and worry about financial consequences.

  • The most common reason given for not having life and health insurance was that insurance is too expensive (74%), followed by being healthy and not seeing the need for it (14%), and not trusting insurance companies (13%).

  • Cost of living meaning people can no longer afford insurance was the top reason given for no longer having insurance across life, trauma or critical illness, income protection, total and permanent disability and health/medical.

  • For those without insurance, 64% would consider taking out an insurance policy if they had more money, 25% would take out an insurance policy if their health started declining and 18% would take out an insurance policy if they started a family. There is a gap in understanding of how insurance works, with only 3% of those who would consider taking out an insurance policy if their health started declining knew that they might not be able to get cover for certain health issues or they might face higher premiums because of them.

  • The majority of health (61%) and life (77%) insurance policies are paid by individuals, with the remainder being partially or fully subsidised by employers.

  • When it comes to health/medical insurance or life insurance being provided by employers, 54% really want this and a further 35% might possibly want this.

  • 45% of respondents have a poor understanding of the relationship between risk and return.

2,002 online survey responses were collected during March 2024 and were representative of the NZ consumer population in terms of age, gender and income.

It is worth noting that as a low engagement product, life and health insurance is something that respondents find hard to recall accurately. That leads to interesting results - this survey contains a probable over-estimate of the number of people who own health insurance, and a probable under-estimate of the number of people who hold life insurance. But the recalled level of cover is, in itself, interesting. For example, if you think you do not have life, trauma, or income insurance, but in fact you do, you or your estate may fail to claim when you may be eligible to do so.

Readers interested in contrasting these survey results with data on the eligible population should contact us.

More news:

Partners Life has decided to stop using its Customer Outcome Matrix

Southern Cross Health Insurance appoints Grant McIvor as chief digital officer

MAS looking for a Head of Technology Strategy and Architecture

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Doreen Dutt Doreen Dutt

Recent rate changes on Quotemonster

We are pleased to confirm that the following rate changes are live on Quotemonster effective 1 December 2024.

Dear Quotemonster users,

We are pleased to confirm that the following rate changes are live on Quotemonster effective 1 December 2024.

  • Southern Cross Wellbeing One and Two (no changes were made to the GP and Prescriptions or Dental and Optical Options)

If you have any questions or comments on these changes please reach out to us on info@quotemonster.co.nz

Happy Crunching!

 
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Kelly O Kelly O

Southern Cross creates new role to oversee hospital network

Southern Cross Healthcare has announced Roger Cronin as the new chief operating officer responsible for the organisation’s 10 wholly owned hospitals.

Southern Cross Healthcare has announced Roger Cronin as the new chief operating officer responsible for the organisation’s 10 wholly owned hospitals. The new role’s focus is on overseeing the operational performance of the hospitals and acting as a strategic link between the hospitals and the national support office.

Cronin was recently CEO of PresMed Australia, a private healthcare provider specialising in surgical day-stay procedures for ophthalmology and ENT patients. Cronin has held a variety of leadership roles in major public hospitals and has worked with the New South Wales Ministry of Health. Cronin will commence his new role in late November.

 

More news:

Westpac campaign highlights dangers of impulse buying and debt accumulation

mySolutions webinar 'Panel Discussion' 4 December

The IFSO Scheme welcomes changes introduced by the Contracts of Insurance Act 2024

Government announces funding for 50 new senior doctors, plus nurses and other health professionals

The RBNZ has cut the Official Cash Rate, taking it from 4.75% to 4.25%

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Kelly O Kelly O

FSCL reminds advisers policies need to continue to meet client needs

The FSCL has stated that advisers must ensure insurance policies continue to meet the needs of each client, each time it is renewed.

The Financial Services Complaints Ltd (FSCL) has stated that advisers must ensure insurance policies continue to meet the needs of each client, each time it is renewed. This comes in the wake of a complaint where a customer paid out $37,000 in funeral insurance over the course of 17 years, for a policy that had a maximum payout of $10,000. The customer raised a complaint with the insurer and the FSCL and following a dispute process the customer was paid out compensation.

 
 
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