Tower tweaks trauma conditions and benefits

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TOWER Health and Life has, today, rolled out the third tranche of changes to its life and trauma policies, designed to make it easier to get customers insured.

Friday, December 12th 2008, 11:00AM

Earlier this year it introduced increases to non-medical underwriting limits which were then followed by reduced premiums on the TOWER Life 360 and TOWER Business 360 products.

This latest set of enhancements deals mainly with conditions and definitions. “These enhancements, in combination with the sharper premium rates we introduced in June, provide a compelling package for advisers to take to their customers, particularly those insuring for higher levels”, TOWER Health & Life chief executive Steve Boomert says.

Tower Health & Life Head of Products & Marketing Grant Hill says the trauma policies are already highly rated, with an A+ from Strategy Financial. These changes should help cement their competitive position.

There are a number of changes which are covered in the list below, however a couple which advisers have wanted are the addition of coronary artery angioplasty. Under this condition Tower pays a full benefit when three or more vessels are treated with greater than 50% occlusion.

Two improved conditions are with regards to intensive care and stroke.

For the intensive care benefit Tower has reduced the time needed to be on ventilators from 10 days to three. The benefit will also be paid if a person is admitted to intensive care for at least five consecutive days.

Tower now pays a benefit if a stroke is the result of a neurological deficit which lasts for more than 24 hours.

Changes include:

• New trauma conditions added to Trauma Cover
• Improvements to a number of Trauma Cover definitions including the Intensive Care definition
• A decrease in the wait period for Permanent Disability Cover from six months to three months
• New benefits and extended limits for Life Cover
• “Own Occupation” available to technical and manual occupation classes on Permanent Disability Cover – now available on classes 1 to 4 inclusive
• A new benefit providing reimbursement for financial or legal advice (up to a specified limit) following a Life Cover or Trauma Cover claim payment
• An increase in the maximum sum insured for the Business Events Increase Option from three times to five times the original, to a maximum of $15,000,000.

These enhancements are effective immediately and there has been no change to current premiums.

“As economic times become tougher, people often want a backstop in the event of something unexpected happening to them. These enhancements make it easier for advisers to sell these products - being amongst the best in the market” says Boomert.

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