New people, products, commission and more from Asteron

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Asteron is in the process of revamping its business under the guidance of new managing director David Carter.

Tuesday, July 3rd 2012, 5:57PM

The company is rebranding itself and  it is currently is on a nationwide roadshow highlighting product changes which it says show that it's back in the game and competitive.

Carter says the company has changed its name to Asteron Life to show that its focus is on life insurance. This is more pronounced since its parent company, ASX-listed Suncorp, sold the non-insurance New Zealand assets, namely NZ Guardian Trust and Tyndall Investment Management.
Carter also said the company wanted to focus on the living insurance products, rather than ones which pay death benefits.

He also said the company was listening to customers and advisers and is prepared to trial things.

It also wanted to play to its strengths which include; claims management, underwriting and policy documentation and business development manager support.

The company has also changed its remuneration package and introduced an incentive programme.

Executive Manager Intermediated Sales, Mark Frecklington said the adviser remuneration was too complicated with eight different tiers and that has now been reduced to two.

Advisers who write annual premiums of up to $40,000 will be paid a commission rate of 160% and those who write more than $40,000 in API will be paid 180%.

He says that it is "not Asteron's position to lead in the remuneration space", but it will be competitive.

It has also offered an incentive to advisers and said if they write $20,000 of API in the period up to December 31 they will be paid the higher commission rate and have that rate locked in for 2013.

Also he made point of highlighting the impact of policy fees.

Currently five insurance companies charge non-commissionable policy fees. He said that can have an impact on advisers' remuneration.

For instance the commission on $1000 worth of premium, at the 180% rate with no policy fee would be $1,800.

However, if an annual policy fee of $78.36 was deducted the commission would fall to $1,659.

To further incentivise advisers Asteron has reintroduced an overseas trip. The destination is Shanghai in early 2013 and to qualify for one ticket an adviser has to write $40,000 of base annual premium. If $60,000 is written then the advisers qualifies for two tickets.

The company has made changes to most of its products. Good Returns will outline these in a separate article.

Also the company has made a number of new appointments. Details in the People Section.

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