tmmonline.nz  |   landlords.co.nz        About Good Returns  |  Advertise  |  Contact Us  |  Terms & Conditions  |  RSS Feeds

NZ's Financial Adviser News Centre

GR Logo
Last Article Uploaded: Saturday, October 5th, 8:41AM

Insurance

rss
Latest Headlines

How health insurance is bought these days

I opened up an old data file recently and found that roughly one third of financial advisers were quoting health within a year of us adding that feature to Quotemonster.

Monday, June 13th 2022, 9:22AM 2 Comments

by Russell Hutchinson

They were also extensively quoting life and health together – although at the time health-only quotes outnumbered health plus life (and anything else included in a life risk package) by two to one.

Today the number of advisers that has never quoted health is very small. The volume of health plus life quotes is much higher –about double, even after accounting for the fact there are many, many, more advisers using the quote tool. That is probably a huge testament to the work AIA, Partners Life, and Sovereign (we are talk about when AIA and Sovereign were separate), have done over the years. It is also a testament to products that, for all intents and purposes, have no upper limits.

Although it remains true that looking at the market as a whole, the dominant way to buy health insurance probably remains (just) group purchases, followed by a health-only policy, when it comes to seeking financial advice, the dominant approach is to think of health insurance as part of a package. That doesn’t mean it is always the same provider, but it does tend to favour the integrated sellers, in this case, AIA and Partners Life. Specialist health insurers Accuro, Southern Cross, and Unimed, are quoted much less often. Of course, there are some special reasons for each of those – Accuro gets almost as many quotes as Southern Cross, which should cheer Accuro and give pause to Southern Cross. Unimed is not really after the adviser market anyway.

The name I haven’t yet mentioned is the exception to this neat division: nib is the most quoted specialist health insurer. That status, technically at least, has just changed. So, although they do not offer a packaged life and health product of their own, their packaging deal of a few years back with Fidelity Life, and their focus on the adviser market has clearly earned them a place in the thinking of advisers. All told, adviser quoting of health with life has never been higher.

Tags: health insurance

« If you are frustrated with how long it takes to make an SOA, you are in good companyMortgage cover in the ascendant »

Special Offers

Comments from our readers

On 13 June 2022 at 1:36 pm acm said:
As an adviser, I never use Quotemonster for quoting Health. It does not create a good breakdown on how the providers differ based on their product range.

If Quotemonster added the ability to change which NIB or Southern Cross plan we were quoting for, then I would use Quotemonster to quote medical.

But as it stands, I talk to a client first and if they want medical I do quotes specific with the providers that offer products that match what they want... specifically, hospital/surgical cover only (AIA & PL) or day to day with hospital cover (NIB & SX)
On 15 June 2022 at 1:36 pm Stu Crowther said:
@ACM - if you go into product and provider settings you can change which product you are quoting for so its easier to compare apples with apples

Sign In to add your comment

 

print

Printable version  

print

Email to a friend
Insurance Briefs

Employees are wanting health and life insurance
A new survey shows potential employees what life and health insurance benefits, but less than a third of employers plan to offer such benefits.

Chubb Life makes changes to trauma benefit
Chubb Life has made a series of enhancements to its Assurance Extra and Assurance Extra Business policies, including the addition of a new Continuous Trauma Benefit,

Resolution Life gets new president
Global life insurance group Resolution Life has appointed Moses Ojeisekhoba as its new President.

Today is Mindfulness Day - here's a new tool
Former Director-General of Health Sir Ashley Bloomfield gets involved with a new online mindfulness practice.

News Bites
Latest Comments
Subscribe Now

Mortgage Rates Newsletter

Daily Weekly

Previous News
Most Commented On
About Us  |  Advertise  |  Contact Us  |  Terms & Conditions  |  Privacy Policy  |  RSS Feeds  |  Letters  |  Archive  |  Toolbox  |  Disclaimer
 
Site by Web Developer and eyelovedesign.com