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.
Southern Cross release their Workplace Wellness Report 2023
Southern Cross have released their Workplace Wellness Report 2023, an in-depth analysis of health and wellbeing in the workplace. Southern Cross surveyed 137 enterprises across New Zealand, representing 135,742 employees, or 6.5% of all NZ employees.
Some of the key findings include
• The average rate of absence per employee was 5.5 days, the highest ever. It was also the first full calendar year since the increased sick leave entitlement of 10 days per annum was in force and there was a mandatory stand-down of seven days for people who contracted Covid-19 that was in place during the time of the survey. From 2012 – 2020 the average ranged from 4.2 to 4.7 days per year.
• The cost to an employer for a typical employee’s absence is now $1,235 annually. Over the entire economy, the cost of absence reached approximately $2.86 billion, due to both increased absence rates and rising labour costs. This is a significant increase from the $1.85 billion cost for the total economy in 2020.
• 49.7% of organisations have observed an increase in stress in 2022. Workload is the main cause of work-related stress/anxiety and long hours as the second main cause of stress. Given the tight labour market conditions, it’s unsurprising that job uncertainty/redundancies dropped down the rankings significantly this year. Financial concerns are now the number one non-work-related stressor.
• 22% of organisations have reported instances of ‘quiet quitting’, where employees signal their intention to work within defined work hours only.
• The impact of staff wellness on productivity has grown to a mean of 4.33 out of 5, up from 3.91 in 2020.
• The main practices businesses are using to identify mental wellbeing/stress are staff surveys and training for managers.
• The top six benefits provided to improve employee well being were: an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP); vaccinations; flexible hours/working at home; education/training; wellbeing programmes; and parental leave.
• Almost 40% of organisations provided some form of subsidised health insurance for at least some employees. For employers who do not provide health insurance for employees, cost is a major barrier, with 53.4% of organisations saying a decrease in the cost of health insurance would prompt them to consider providing health insurance as a benefit. 31.9% would consider providing health insurance if they had evidence that it assists in retaining staff due to its perceived value. 14.7% would consider providing health insurance if they were approached by a health insurer to discuss the fundamentals of insurance, policies, benefits and wellness programmes.
• More than half of organisations allow more people to work from home since 2021, with one to two days per week as the most common working from home option.
• All organisations who had made changes around allowing staff to work from home or remotely saw it as a positive move, with employees happier to have more flexibility. On the flip side, almost all large organisations and about half of smaller organisations reported some employees felling isolated, some issues around collaboration.
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Fidelity Life announce two key appointments
Leigh Bennett has been promoted internally to the role of Head of Underwriting. Leigh will be managing Fidelity Life’s 34-strong Underwriting team. She will be responsible in ensuring policy applications are assessed appropriately, making quality decisions and focused on achieving good customer and commercial outcomes. Most recently the Product Owner in the company’s digital team, Leigh has nine years’ experience in the life insurance sector.
Mat Bark has been appointed to the newly created role of Head of Channel Enablement. Mat is tasked with shaping Fidelity Life’s future adviser channel experience. This includes business ownership of new digital interfaces and platform innovation, modernising the legacy and in force servicing experience for advisers, and leading Fidelity Life’s Group insurance re-platform. Mat was previously Head of Existing Business at AIA.
Bronwyn Kirwan, Chief Sales and Service Officer at Fidelity Life says
“Following the delivery of some key transformation activities, we are now heavily focused on our distribution franchise and are delighted to announce the appointment of both Leigh and Mat in these critical leadership roles to help drive and enhance our engagement with advisers.”
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Compliance Refinery Compliance Officer Training Programme starting end of June
Compliance Refinery has designed a Compliance Officer Training Programme, starting at the end of June. The programme aims to equip senior support staff or compliance personnel with the tools, skills and implementation capabilities necessary to support Directors in your business.
The programme runs over a year and consists of:
• 10x monthly 1-hour group training sessions with a case study. These focus on the technical aspects, responsibilities and knowledge of a compliance officer.
Setting the scene: being an effective compliance officer
FAP standard conditions
FAP licensing guide
The code of professional conduct
The purpose of conduct
Three lines of defence and common compliance structures
Compliance assurance and testing, and reporting to the board
Six step advice process and file reviews
Marketing and advertising; vulnerable customers
How to maintain a licence
• 11x individual 1-hour coaching sessions. These are real-world coaching sessions on issues specific to your business, whether regulatory events, pain points or internal issues that help you conceptualise solutions.
• Compliance Refinery help desk. Staffed by experts, you can call or email to get personal responses.
• Additional training sessions on relevant topics
For more information visit www.ComplianceRefinery.co.nz
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Report claims Pharmac takes more than seven years to make decisions on new medicines
A report, Pharmac's Medicines Waiting Lists: Impacts on Patients in Aotearoa New Zealand, has claimed that Pharmac has an average waiting time of 7.7 years for applications across all Pharmac lists. The report was commissioned by Medicines New Zealand, a campaign group whose members are in the prescription medicines and vaccines industries.
Pharmac is the government agency that decides what medicines to fund and manages a fixed budget for those medicines. Pharmac need to decide which medicines to fund for the best health outcomes for New Zealanders – how improved people’s lives might be and for how long with the medicine; how much shorter or less healthy people’s lives would be without the medicine; and how a patient’s family will be affected by a funding decision.
Applications on the Options for Investment waiting list, which comprises applications that Pharmac have indicated they would like to fund, subject to budget, have been there for an average of 5.9 years. The report claims that the time taken to achieve funding decisions has increased in the last 2 years, with 39% of applications being funded within 20 months in 2020/21 compared to only 3% in 2021/22. One of the recommendations the report calls for is for Pharmac to establish a performance benchmark for the time taken to achieve funding decisions.
Some insurance companies offer access to Medsafe-approved, non-Pharmac funded medicines, like nib’s non-Pharmac Plus option.
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Budget includes funding to improve health care in NZ
Budget 2023 contained a raft of new initiatives. Whether you think it is a ‘no frills’ budget, like Labour are positioning it, or a ‘blow-out budget’ like the opposition have dubbed it, here’s some highlights related to health, privacy and FMA spending.
• Budget figures include more than $1 billion to increase health workforce pay rates and boost staff numbers. Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall says the spending will allow for more responsive training pathways, increased recruitment and improved immigration processes to ease workforce shortages. Initiatives to focus on primary and community care to reduce pressure on hospitals and reduce wait lists are included.
• Health spending allows for 500 new nurses to be employed.
• The Budget allocates $20 million to establish outreach services to lift immunisation and screening coverage for Māori and Pacific peoples
• The Office of the Privacy Commissioner receives additional funding in the Budget, for an additional FTE in the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to continue support for agencies in meeting their minimum Privacy Act 2020 obligations.
• The Budget scraps $5 co-payment for prescription medicines from July, welcome news for the more than 135,000 adults did not collect their prescription because of cost in 2021‑22.
• Richard Klipin has welcomed news the government is allocating $19.6 million to match KiwiSaver ‘employer’ contributions to people taking paid parental leave, but is calling for a proper review of KiwiSaver settings.
• In a savings initiative, the Financial Markets Authority is returning $3 million of unspent funding held in the Financial Markets Authority Litigation Fund.
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