Partners Life to become a group player

Partners Life is looking to enter the group life market with an offering that will allow advisers to refer business to the life company or do it themselves.

Wednesday, September 11th 2013, 4:44PM 2 Comments

Jon Lloyd told the Newpark Professional Development day in Auckland that there is huge opportunity in this market.

In the United Kingdom 75% of al life risk was through group sales and the number was about 40% in Australia.

He said only 7% of life business in New Zealand came through group sales.

Some of the issues with group business in New Zealand were a big gap in policy wording between group and retail business and a lack of understanding of group business by underwriters.

Other issues include a lack of product innovation and poor administration, particularly at renewal time.

While Lloyd gave a way little about what the Partners product will look like he did say that advisers can do it themselves or they could refer business to the company which would do all the work and pay a referral fee.

He also said there would be a standard and deluxe products. The deluxe product range would have all the features of retail products while standard would be a stripped down version.

Medical insurance won’t be included to start with but is likely to be added in the second quarter next year. Lloyd says the issue here was the need to develop an “affordable and sustainable” product.

« Watch out for new non-smokers: ISOPartners Life outlines its dealer group strategy »

Special Offers

Comments from our readers

On 12 September 2013 at 12:10 pm Yawn said:
Find the answer to the reason we advisers only sell 7%... the work involved for the return is generally rubbish. In addition other countries have incentives for employers to consider this concept.

I also find that what happens is employees end up with spouses/partners who are not insured and the illusion as a result of group cover that they have all they need.

Nice low distribution cost for the insurer though and largely a headache for an adviser administrating schemes... not for me!
On 13 September 2013 at 1:21 pm Richard Pykett said:
From experience, I would have an opposing view. It’s a mindset and a systems thing in my humble opinion. We developed E-Broker partly from experience servicing a group scheme. The scheme in question had 150 members when I started and 460 from a total workforce of 600 when the business was sold and the scheme disbanded. Along the way, I wrote literally hundreds of top-up policies, many on spouses, as we had a system to uncover the need and handle the relationship. And Continuation Options – what gold… We have numerous clients that we still look after on a private basis, who came out of that group relationship 25 years ago. Systems and mindset are the key.

Sign In to add your comment

www.GoodReturns.co.nz

© Copyright 1997-2024 Tarawera Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved