Asteron Life announce enhancements across Personal and Business Insurance

Asteron Life has announced a suite of enhancements across their Personal and Business Insurance products. All enhancements apply to in-force policies issued after August 2004 and will apply to claimable events from 5 June 2025.

Some of the key enhancements include:

• New support benefits. An example is the new Family Member Accommodation & Transport Benefit which offers up to $300/day for accommodation and $2,500 in travel expenses reimbursed to support a family member during treatment.

• Life Cover with accelerated Trauma Recovery Cover conversion benefit

• Updated definition for major organ transplant, including widening the scope of eligible procedures.

• Updated definition for diabetes, including reducing the threshold for claims from two complications to one.

• New Rehabilitation and retraining Benefit for Business Insurance customers - increased support of return-to-work efforts by reimbursing rehabilitation and retraining costs.

• Increased flexibility to increase cover in line with life or business changes that happen to customers.

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MAS announce appointment of new CEO

Jo McCauley has been appointed new Chief Executive Officer of MAS, starting 4 August 2025. McCauley is currently CEO of Southern Cross Travel Insurance, and she has a general insurance and consumer finance background, having led marketing, sales and product teams.

MAS Chair Brett Sutton said

“Jo brings a rare combination of leadership experience, commercial insight and strong people skills. We are excited to work with Jo as we build on a strong FY25 result and invest further in technology and service enhancements for our Members”.

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nib research finds more adults are staying on top of essential health screenings

Recent nib research has found that more adults are staying on top of essential health screenings, but costs remain a barrier. The research was carried out in February 2025 and surveyed 1,010 Kiwi, building on the last survey conducted in December 2023. Some of the key findings include:

• An increasing number of adults are keeping up with necessary health screenings - up to date with eye checks (45% up from 43%), dental check-ups (36% up from 35%), and heart health screenings (31% up from 28%).

• 30% believe their health is better than their peers, up from 25% in 2023.

• Financial concerns are increasingly preventing Kiwi adults from accessing health checks, with 36% citing cost as a barrier (up from 29%).

• 80% of those with health insurance are committed to health screening checks (vs 72% overall).

• More parents feel clear about which screening checks their children need (72% up from 58% in 2023).

• More parents believe an annual health check is essential for their children (84% up from 75% in 2023).

• More children are staying up to date with common screening tests - hearing checks (54% up from 48%), dental check-ups (66% up from 55%), eye checks (57% up from 50%) and general health exams (59% up from 57%).

Rob Hennin, Chief Executive Officer at nib New Zealand, said

“Proactive health screenings can be lifesaving and it’s really encouraging to see that Kiwi are taking the reins when it comes to their wellbeing. It’s clear to see that accessibility and cost issues continue to be barriers.”

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FSC release latest research report ‘Women and Finance in New Zealand’

The Financial Services Council (FSC) have released their ‘Insights and Trends: Women and finance in New Zealand’ 2025 report. With International Women’s Day being celebrated this month, the report aims to better understand how women and finances interact. Some of the key findings include:

• FSC research from December 2021 found that over 80% of female respondents considered their financial wellbeing as moderate to very low, with just under 64% of respondents reporting they worried about money at least monthly. By 2024, 70% of women were reporting worrying about money on a daily or weekly (in comparison, 51% of men reported worrying about money on a daily or weekly basis in 2024).

• Despite reported underconfidence, FSC research has found that women are more financially literate than men overall, with 66% of women answering at least 75% of financial trivia questions correct, compared to 57% of men.

• Women (61%) are more likely to be in debt than men (43%).

• Women are more likely to be working part-time, have full-time home duties or be unemployed (43%) than the equivalent for men (14%).

• 58% of women say they are not particularly financially prepared or not financially prepared at all for retirement.

Last Year, Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission found that the retirement gap between men and women has not improved, remaining fixed at a 25% difference since 2023. FSC CEO Kirk Hope said

"The current KiwiSaver settings disadvantages those who take career breaks, disproportionately affecting women who pause their earnings to care for or start their families.

It’s encouraging to see the Government make steps to start to address this, with those receiving paid parental leave from July 2024 being able to choose to make KiwiSaver contributions, and Inland Revenue making employer contributions of 3%.”

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FSCL sees significant increase in complaints over the past year

Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL) has revealed that complaints rose by 6% in the last year, to 1,426. Of these, complaints against financial advisers were up by 18% and complaints against insurers were up by 14.5%. The biggest driver of complaints was against lenders, particularly involving car, personal and small business loans. In all, new disputes involving formal investigations by FSCL increased by 10% to 359.

FSCL Financial Ombudsman Susan Taylor has said

“We expect this high level of complaints to persist as long as economic conditions remain difficult. The new rules increasing our financial loss compensation to $500,000 (previously $350,000), which took effect in July, could also lead to a further rise.”

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AIA held annual summit

AIA NZ held their annual Healthier, Longer, Better Lives Summit on 4 July. The conference brought together advisers to hear from a range of speakers around the Healthier, Longer, Better Lives theme.

• AIA NZ Chief Executive Officer, Nick Stanhope, AIA NZ Head of Aligned Advice, Jack Newman, and advisers Leelee Stone and Katrina Church discussed what Healthier, Longer, Better Lives means to them, and the crucial role advisers play in the industry.

• David Letele discussed the health burden in society and the important role that preventative health plays in relieving this burden.

• Raelene Castle, Group Chief Executive at Sport New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand, shared her practical and unique methods for achieving growth.

• Craig Deats, Global Sales and Distribution Executive at Vitality Global, spoke about AIA Vitality, a science-backed health and wellbeing programme, and how it is delivering value for advisers. This session was followed by an AIA Vitality Q&A, where Craig shared insights on the global programme and engaged with attendees.

• Dame Valerie Adams, a shotput World Champion, Olympian and AIA Vitality ambassador, discussed the ‘For Myself’ pillar and what that meant to her.

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Financial Advice NZ’s Connect Tour 2024

Financial Advice New Zealand’s Connect Tour 2024 runs across July and August, with 6 sessions across the country. The programme features:

• Bronwyn Kirwan, Chief Commercial Officer at Fidelity Life, speaking about New Zealanders’ attitudes towards financial advice;

• a fireside chat with Angus Dale-Jones, Chair of the Financial Advice Code Committee;

• Michelle Forster, Director Principal at Heathcote Investment Partners giving observations from the frontline;

• a session on adviser excellence featuring William Tieu, Mortgage Adviser at Your Financial Engineer and Tim Fairbrother CFP, Financial Adviser at Rival Wealth;

• and Nick Hakes, Chief Executive Officer and Cecilia Farrow, Head of Professional Development at Financial Advice New Zealand sharing the outcomes of member value research.

Dates and locations below:

• 23 July – Dunedin

• 24 July – Christchurch

• 25 July – Palmerston North

• 6 August – Wellington

• 7 August – Cambridge

• 8 August - Auckland

Tickets cost $60 +gst for members or $160 + gst for non-members.

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Gallagher Bassett’s 2024 Claims Insights

Gallagher Bassett surveyed 150 businesses across North America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to find out the biggest challenges and considerations for those in the insurance industry.

Gallagher Bassett say last year key business challenges were premium affordability (29%), market competition (22%) and keeping up with technology (20%).

Gallagher Bassett suggest that to gain advantages, carriers need to implement strategies that leverage external expertise, data-driven insights and generative AI.

Some other key findings include:

·         84% of global respondents emphasised offering competitive salaries to retain employees.

·         75% predict the biggest challenge in the compliance and regulation area will be around data privacy and security.

·         86% use climate data and analytics in risk assessments and underwriting processes.

·         67% of insurance carriers utilised generative AI chatbots in customer service.

·         95% of global carriers anticipate improved speeds and operational efficiency with AI integration.

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Asteron Life updates personal and business insurance products

Asteron Life has unveiled a raft of updates to their personal and business insurance products.

The changes include clarification of existing policy terms to ensure greater transparency and ease of understanding and a range of new and enhanced benefits.

The new benefits and enhancements include:

• Repatriation benefit on personal and business life cover

• Advancement benefit for terminal conditions on personal life cover

• Shortened waiting periods for income protection and mortgage and living cover

• Cover conversion benefit on business disability cover and farmers disability cover

• Enhancements to the Funeral benefits on life cover, kids cover and business expenses

• Enhancements to two definitions for trauma recovery and 11 definitions for major trauma

• The requirement for 14 days total disability as part of the waiting period has been removed from business disability cover, farmers disability cover and business expenses cover

• Introduction of a premium and cover suspension to the optional needlestick benefit

• Removal of some restrictions from various benefits such as specific injury support – lump sum and monthly, trauma reinstatement option and the crisis benefit within the optional immediate assist package

Claire Sutton, Executive Manager Life Portfolio and New Business at Asteron Life said

“It's key that our range of covers continue to add value for our customers, policies and terms are easy to understand, and insurance remains as affordable and accessible as possible. We know that these things really matter for our customers and advisers. We also worked hard to ensure that these improvements have not increased customer premiums, given we know how tough it is for many New Zealanders right now.”

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FMA says those with licences unlikely to have to undergo another licencing process

Speaking at Financial Advice New Zealand’s Thrive Conference, Samantha Barrass, chief executive at the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), has said it is unlikely that those already holding licences will have to undergo another licencing process. Barrass said last year’s push for financial advisers to achieve their Level 5 before the deadline was “the most successful transition I've witnessed in my career” and “a world-beater.”

Speaking earlier at the conference, Commerce Minister Andrew Bayly had said he was aware some organisations held multiple licences and he was looking at whether it could be streamlined into a single licence as part of the government’s drive to simplify regulation of the financial services industry.

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