In our Insurance News this week we report on Money Managers' attempts to sell life insurance and Russell Hutchinson's latest thoughts on insurance.
The government’s deposit guarantee scheme continues to generate a flow of news. We have the latest list of who is approved here (it’s growing daily at the moment with a number of finance companies now on board). In addition to this the Reserve Bank talked about the scheme in its Financial Stability Report this week.
It was good to see St Laurence come out with an update on its rescue plans which also includes a guarantee of sorts. Meanwhile, Strategic Finance is still pondering its options after its parent company, Allco HIT, finally collapsed last week.
Clearly the big political news of the week was the election result. Assuming National goes through with its proposed changes to KiwiSaver, there will be plenty of work for employers and advisers (along with fund managers and administrators). This week we have the first in a series of stories on these changes.
Over on the property front two themes are emerging. In yesterday’s REINZ house price data there were weak signs of improvement in the market. I suspect one doesn’t read into them too much and of more importance will be if these trends continue.
The other change is that with interest rates falling borrowing strategies are changing away from fixed rates towards floating. While this is happening banks are increasing their gross margins on floating rates. You can see the changes in the graph with this article.
Besides the changes at Brook, Frank Russell has a new boss overseeing New Zealand. Details in the People page.
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