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.
Fidelity Life announce product enhancements and digital, service, and retention initiatives
At Fidelity Life’s Engage 2024 conference, Fidelity Life announced a range of product enhancements, digital, service and retention initiatives and other news.
Trauma and Life covers: The entry eligibility for the Inbuilt Child’s Trauma benefit has been reduced from two years to three months, allowing more families to receive early protection. A new, separate benefit specifically for newborns facing trauma has also been introduced. Fidelity Life will also trail a premium discount for defined exclusions on trauma covers in the coming months.
Condition Definitions: Refinements have been made for clarity, and Terminal Illness has been introduced as a defined condition across the trauma range, including Child's Trauma.
Bereavement and Child’s Funeral Benefits: The Bereavement Benefit has been increased from $15,000 to $25,000, and the Child’s Funeral Benefit has been increased from $3,500 to $15,000 for children aged 10 to 20.
Grief Counselling Benefit: A new benefit offering an additional $2,500 to the sum insured.
Financial Planning Benefit: Easier access by removing thresholds and extending the claim period.
New Specific Injury Cover: A low-cost solution that pays a lump sum for any of 30 defined injuries.
Live Chat: Quick and easy access to New Business and Underwriting teams via Adviser Centre.
New-Look E-App: A modern and intuitive user experience launching in March 2025. The E-App’s latest upgrade goes live later this month, with the new ‘share’ feature enabling advisers to send a link to their customers, allowing customers to complete all or part of the application on their own.
Dedicated Adviser Service Team: A team committed to servicing all adviser needs.
Enhanced Retention Tools: Including renewal reminders and automated SMS reminders for customers. There will be additional roles created too.
Expanding adviser support roles: Fidelity Life are creating new roles, including a National Partnership Manager for mid-sized and corporate firms, as well as an Auckland Business Manager and a Desk-Based Business Manager, to provide more tailored support and drive closer engagement.
Adviser Edge Programme: New additions to the programme include an invitation-only overseas study tour and new practice manager masterclasses for admin staff.
Grow Together programme: Coming in early 2025, the invitation-only Grow Together programme will provide dedicated, prioritised support across key areas including new business, underwriting, and retention. Advisers in the programme can expect to benefit from dedicated support resources, exclusive benefits, and access to a wide range of support tools and professional development opportunities.
Adviser Council: Fidelity Life are inviting advisers to express their interest in joining their Adviser council, which meets quarterly with Fidelity Life’s leadership team to discuss industry updates, share market trends, and provides objective feedback on their initiatives.
Adviser relationship survey: To better understand market perceptions and Fidelity Life are launching a bi-annual Adviser relationship survey to provide key insights into advisers' experiences and expectations and where Fidelity Life need to improve.
Group Solutions enhancements: From early 2025, Fidelity Life will be launching a quarterly industry insight, Group IQ; holding an annual onsite Group HQ conference for the top 30 group advisers; and launching a new group solution designed for small businesses, providing enhanced tools and technology for a smoother experience and better outcomes.
Bronwyn Kirwan, Fidelity Life's Chief Commercial Officer, said
"We are thrilled to introduce these new product enhancements and initiatives. They are a testament to our ongoing commitment to providing our advisers and customers with the best possible support and value.
These enhancements deliver more value, greater accessibility, and increased choice."
More info:
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Asteron Life updates personal and business insurance products
Asteron Life has unveiled a raft of updates to their personal and business insurance products.
Asteron Life has unveiled a raft of updates to their personal and business insurance products.
The changes include clarification of existing policy terms to ensure greater transparency and ease of understanding and a range of new and enhanced benefits.
The new benefits and enhancements include:
Repatriation benefit on personal and business life cover
Advancement benefit for terminal conditions on personal life cover
Shortened waiting periods for income protection and mortgage and living cover
Cover conversion benefit on business disability cover and farmers disability cover
Enhancements to the Funeral benefits on life cover, kids cover and business expenses
Enhancements to two definitions for trauma recovery and 11 definitions for major trauma
The requirement for 14 days total disability as part of the waiting period has been removed from business disability cover, farmers disability cover and business expenses cover
Introduction of a premium and cover suspension to the optional needlestick benefit
Removal of some restrictions from various benefits such as specific injury support – lump sum and monthly, trauma reinstatement option and the crisis benefit within the optional immediate assist package
Claire Sutton, Executive Manager Life Portfolio and New Business at Asteron Life said
“It's key that our range of covers continue to add value for our customers, policies and terms are easy to understand, and insurance remains as affordable and accessible as possible. We know that these things really matter for our customers and advisers. We also worked hard to ensure that these improvements have not increased customer premiums, given we know how tough it is for many New Zealanders right now.”
More daily news:
AIA extend one month’s premium free on qualifying new policies
mySolutions webinar 'Quotemonster Research' 9am 3 April
mySolutions roadshows are running in May
Partners Life sponsor Cheques and Balances podcast
Commerce Commission to meet with Financial Advice New Zealand after accused of being out of touch
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
Important website upgrades: Quotemonster v4.4.0
Our IT team have made some monstrously good upgrades to Quotemonster recently. To get all the good stuff and make sure the site is running at its fastest, please refresh your page and scroll down to ensure that you’re on our latest version – web V4.4.0.
Our latest updates include:
A beta (testing) function called Upload Insurance Quote is now available to all Advicemonster users. Once you’ve saved a PDF version of your insurer quote, drag this into the portal and be amazed when an overview of your information is shown and automatically input in your Quotemonster Client and Benefit Details. Note this is only a beta version, it uses AI to read the uploaded quote, and we require users to review the information that is generated. For more details about our policy on AI use please refer to our terms and conditions or contact us.
Another update available to Advicemonster users is the option to include more reports in your SOA appendices. Simply select the reports you are interested in including and links will be presented in Appendix Four: Quotemonster Research Report.
Chubb Life’s 10% lifetime discount is available for quoting. This discount is applied to new business clients with healthy BMI measurements of between 18.5 and 24.9, are non-smokers, and have no medical loadings or exclusions. To apply the lifetime discount to your quotes, simply select the company in the Result panel and tick the “Apply 10% Lifetime Reward?” option.
Please note, if you’re interested in accessing a BMI calculator, we have one available in the Underwriting tab.
Specific Injury (SI) pricing and quoting is now available! This benefit has been highly requested over the past few years, so we are very excited about this addition. We received a large amount of feedback from advisers, insurers, industry experts and our research advisory board. The four companies you can compare are AIA, Asteron Life, Chubb Life and Partners Life.
AIA, Asteron Life, and Chubb Life require a qualifying cover to be selected with SI, while Partners Life has a standalone benefit, all products have minimum and maximum cover levels. Here are the relevant rules re-qualifying covers when quoting this benefit on Quotemonster:
The consensus from all the feedback we received was to have Partners Life Specific Injury product (Specific Conditions) excluded from the standard comparison by default but include a tick box which selects and ‘turns on’ the rating for Specific Conditions. Therefore, to include this provider in your premium or research comparison, ensure you have selected Include Partners Life Specific Conditions.
We believe that this approach is fair because it gives those Advisers who wish to provide a complete overview of on-sale Specific Injury products, the option to do so.
If you have any questions or improvements you’d like to bring to our attention, please feel free to email us on info@quotemonster.co.nz
