Chatswood serves the life and health insurance sector in New Zealand with market intelligence, data, and bespoke consulting services. Some of these are provided in conjunction with Quality Product Research Limited - a subsidiary that brings you Quotemonster.

We believe that good decisions are more likely to occur when we have good information about the market environment in which we operate. Intuitive leaps and creative decisions are always required, of course, but the more they are based on a firm foundation of observation, the better they tend to be.

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Asteron Life announce enhancements across Personal and Business Insurance

Asteron Life has announced a suite of enhancements across their Personal and Business Insurance products.

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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Fidelity Life welcomes record number of advisers to Career Connect programme

Fidelity Life has announced the fourth intake of its adviser programme, Career connect, for new advisers and the recipients of their eight scholarships.

Fidelity Life has announced the fourth intake of its adviser programme, Career connect, for new advisers. This year sees the programme expand to welcome its largest cohort to date - 30 emerging advisers. The company will also soon invite adviser businesses to join the Career connect registry; to signal their interest in offering work experience opportunities to newly qualified financial advisers. 

Submissions this year attracted greater diversity, , with 56% of applicants under the age of 35, 62% coming from female applicants and just under 30 ethnicities represented across the more than 70 applicants.

The Career connect programme awarded eight scholarships this year, up from seven last year, with each valued at up to $5,000. The recipients of the 2025 Career connect scholarships are:

  • Grace Leaso, Auckland - Kōwhai scholarship (for an outstanding Pasifika applicant)  

  • Grace Shearer, Hastings - Toe Toe scholarship (for an outstanding young applicant aged 21-25)

  • Jada Mandery, Auckland - Women in Finance scholarship (supported by Kaplan Professional)

  • Marcel Stenning, Auckland - Pāua scholarship (for outstanding applicant demonstrating excellence)

  • Michelle Andrews, Auckland - Women in Finance scholarship (supported by Kaplan Professional)

  • Milly Elworthy, Mosgiel – Rural scholarship (supported by FMG) 

  • Olivera Vasic-Wooller, Auckland - Rāngi Po scholarship (for an underrepresented community in financial services)

  • TK Buchanan, Christchurch - Pounamu scholarship (for an outstanding Māori applicant)

Fidelity Life Head of Solutions Michelle Doyle said

“By taking part, advice businesses play a vital role in mentoring fresh talent… It helps new advisers gain industry experience and build confidence as they transition into the profession.” 

The 2025 cohort of 30 will start their journey this week. Over the next six months, they’ll take on part-time study to earn their Level 5 qualification through Kaplan Professional. Fidelity Life will host a graduation ceremony early next year to celebrate their accomplishments.  

 

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AIA announce four new national sales manager appointments

AIA has made four new appointments within their Distribution team.

 
 

Aaron Gilmore has been appointed National Sales Manager, Retail. Gilmore has been with AIA since 2023 and has been an AIA Vitality Coach and Northern Region Manger, Business Development.

 

Carley Ellis has been appointed National Sales Manager, Aligned Advice. Ellis has 20 years of experience in New Zealand’s financial services industry and has a proven track record in business development, financial advice, and leadership.

Sarah Hepper has been appointed National Sales Manager, Corporate Solutions. Hepper has over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry, and has spent the past 15 years contributing to the growth of Corporate Solutions at AIA NZ

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Munich Re look at improving Cancer outcomes

As part of Munich Re’s Life Science Report 2025, they have investigated the projected impact of advances in cancer treatment and research. These advances will change how cancers are defined, prevented, diagnosed and treated and are expected to significantly improve cancer mortality.

As part of Munich Re’s Life Science Report 2025, they have investigated the projected impact of advances in cancer treatment and research. These advances will change how cancers are defined, prevented, diagnosed and treated and are expected to significantly improve cancer mortality.

Cancer is the leading cause of death among policyholders for most insurers worldwide, as such it demands investigation. Much progress has been made in the past couple of decades to improve cancer mortality, through both reducing cancer risk factors (such as the dramatic downturn in tobacco use) and better diagnosis and treatment. Mortality improvement trends are expected to accelerate as our understanding of cancer genetics are combined with artificial intelligence (AI).

AI will be used to both improve cancer risk prevention and diagnostics. AI analysis of an individual’s personal information such as health data, family history, genetic and epigenetic profiles, microbiome, living environment and exposure history, sometimes called a statistical biopsy, will give a better understanding of risk for a wide range of cancers. This could potentially allow for a personalised approach to risks, behaviours, and identification of which strategies may be most effective in addressing these factors.

Being able to diagnose cancer more accurately, and at earlier stages, should improve cancer mortality. AI has already led to refinements in imaging studies, and in blood, urine and tissue samples. AI can also be used to analyse the tumour’s genetic pattern, other associated biomarkers and an individual’s risk profile to allow for better prognosis and management approach. AI’s ability to recognise patters not apparent to humans will help with diagnostic tools such as imaging studies, pathologic specimen interpretation and photograph analysis.

More effective screening approaches will lead to earlier cancer diagnosis and improved cancer mortality. An important technology, ‘liquid biopsy’, is currently used to analyse fluids to look for markers indicating the presence of a cancer, typically used to detect residual cancer after treatment or recurrence. If a liquid biopsy test that can screen for multiple cancers in asymptomatic individuals could be brought to market at a price point where it is accessible to the masses, it would be a game changer. Though it would also raise concerns about over-diagnosis and surveillance bias, as some identified cancers may never post a significant mortality risk.

The combination of AI and genomic analysis of tumour cells and immune cells has led to the development of targeted treatments that exploit specific genetic patterns. These treatments are more precise and safer than chemotherapy, with the four key categories of therapies emerging being targeted monoclonal antibodies, immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines and adoptive cell immunotherapy.

With potential changes in how cancers are classified, product definitions will need to be modified. Instead of being classified based on their tissue of origin, it’s expected new cancer tests will be able to categorise cancers based on their underlying genetic causes – potentially leading to thousands of cancer subtypes.

Where previously terminal cancers become able to be managed and instead turn into chronic disease, there may be implications for living benefits products. Reduced mortality should be favourable for life insurances businesses, though the costs of more sophisticated, individualised cancer treatments may have a negative cost impact on health insurance businesses. Munich Re predict that advances in diagnosis and changes in diagnostic criteria are going to increase cancer incidence rates in the short term, but may decrease critical illness rates if major advances in cancer prevention are realised.

AI will also have implications for underwriting. AI-based diagnosis is likely to be more accurate and predictive than current methods, with fewer false positive and false negative results, enabling risk to be better assessed. Better monitoring post-cancer treatment will mean recurrence risk can be more accurately assessed too.

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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.

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Privacy Week 2025 is coming up

Privacy week runs from 12 - 16 May, and features a range of free webinars that promote privacy awareness.

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Proposed changes to Health and Safety Laws

We take a look at the proposed changes to Health and Safety laws, whereby the government wants to reduce compliance costs and provide greater certainty for businesses.

You may have seen the proposed changes to Health and Safety laws, whereby the government wants to reduce compliance costs and provide greater certainty for businesses. Bell Gully have a good summation of the proposed reforms here, but basically the Government is endeavouring to reduce the compliance burden, clarify health and safety duties (including limiting obligations for small, low-risk businesses) and clarify the distinction between governance and operational health and safety responsibilities.

There are many opposing points of view on the changes. Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff has said

"It's disappointing to see the minister has ignored the widespread consensus on what New Zealand needs to do to improve its poor track record and instead has chosen to carve out small businesses from good health and safety practices.

Exempting small businesses from best practice health and safety makes no sense when we know that small business are riskier and need more support."

Institute of Directors general manager Guy Beatson said

"Clarifying that boards are accountable for risk management and safety culture - not hands-on management - will mean directors can better focus on their core governance role without inadvertently overstepping."

Mike Cosman, chair of the Institute of Safety Management said

"The reforms are focused instead on costs to businesses of prevention and not the much greater costs of harm.

This seems to be looking through the wrong end of the telescope to us because the cost of our poor health and safety record is north of $4.9 billion per year to say nothing of the impact on workers and their families."

Russell Hutchinson has taken a look at the proposed regulations and put in his two cents.

As a country we have a not-terrible, but not-so-good track record on health and safety. One measure is fatal accidents, here I have selected countries we often use in comparisons:

Clearly, we are not as bad as, say, the United States. If we delved into that we would see significant variation on a state-by-state basis – but let’s not worry about that for now. Compared to Australia, for roughly every three people who die in a workplace accident there, four will die here. Not so good. What’s surprising is how well the UK performs – better than France and much of the EU, and better than Japan, places I normally consider to be better organised and more prescriptive in terms of employee protections. Not so! I like it when we find good data which challenges my pre-existing view. It’s a reward for paying attention to the data.

Are the proposed changes to governance liability right or wrong? One argument could be that by reducing liability on directors the workplace will become less safe. Another view is that by ensuring we place responsibility on the people who are closest to the problem we will better target the point at which better decisions can be made. Probably we will not know which until we have seen this operate for some time. Progress always seems to be so slow. Incentives also count – and the role of ACC, which has many benefits to our economy, also has some negative effects, somewhat masking the price signal in this case. I wonder if that will also get talked about.

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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.

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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Fidelity Life announce several key appointments

Fidelity Life have announced a range of changes to their team.

Fidelity Life have announced a range of changes to their team.

Craig Wagstaff appointed Head of Individual Life

 

Craig starts the role 9 June, and he will report directly to Bronwyn Kirwan, Chief Commercial Officer. Craig brings extensive expertise in life insurance, adviser relationships and bancassurance partnerships and most recently was Group General Manager Franchise, Brand and Marketing at NZHL. Craig will lead all aspects of Fidelity Life’s distribution strategy and channel performance for advisers, strategic alliances, bancassurance, and digital partners - areas of significant investment as Fidelity Life continues its growth journey.

Simon Millward takes on newly created role of National Partnerships Manager – Corporate and Growth

 

Simon will manage a portfolio of intermediary partnerships at regional and national levels while driving growth through new relationships.  Simon was formerly Fidelity Life’s Head of Service Excellence, overseeing adviser onboarding, customer value and retention, customer advocacy and complaint resolution, and quality assurance.

Rhys Knight takes on the new role of Group Business Manager (contract)

 

Rhys was previously at Suncorp New Zealand and his new role will enable Fidelity Life to provide greater support to Group advisers and offer more protection to employees across New Zealand. 


Sam Paterson takes on the role of Canterbury & Marlborough region Business Manager

 

Sam starts mid-April and was previously Area Manager for the Canterbury region at Farmers Mutual Group (FMG).


Peter Warfield & Kirsty Michell promoted to Senior Business Managers

Peter Warfield has been promoted to Senior Business Manager – North while Kirsty Michell has been promoted to Senior Business Manager – South.

Title changes for Michelle O’Connell and Gary Binnie

Following Peter and Kirsty’s promotions, Fidelity Life’s two current Senior Business Managers have had title changes. Michelle O’Connell has a title change to Regional Manager – North while Gary Binnie has a title change to Regional Manager - South.

Kenny Kaushish leaves Fidelity Life

Kenny Kaushish leaves Fidelity Life on 30 June, to transition into new role as a financial adviser. A search for a new Auckland Business Manager has commenced.  

 

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nib New Zealand launches Ultimate Life & Living product range

nib New Zealand has launched Ultimate Life & Living, a suite of six new insurance products available exclusively through advisers.

nib New Zealand has launched Ultimate Life & Living, a suite of six new insurance products available exclusively through advisers.

The six new products are:

  • Ultimate Life Insurance

  • Ultimate Trauma Insurance

  • Ultimate Income Protection Insurance (available in both Indemnity and Agreed Value)

  • Ultimate Mortgage Protection Insurance

  • Ultimate Total & Permanent Disability Insurance

  • Ultimate Waiver of Premium

nib is introducing a simplified application process. The updated system, nibAPPLY, will allow advisers to quote and submit applications for health, life and living insurance products simultaneously, improving efficiencies.

Advisers must complete product training and accreditation to offer the new products. nib offers online modules for both new and experienced advisers.

For a limited time, new customers get a $300 credit on their nib Ultimate Life & Living Insurance policy after paying for their first month or more when processed through nibAPPLY before 30 June 2025.

For a limited time, existing nib health clients can get 10% off their Health Insurance premiums when they bundle Health with Ultimate Life & Living Insurance, when any member on an eligible health policy is issued with a new Ultimate Life & Living Insurance policy (subject to meeting minimum premium criteria). The discount applies to the total health policy premium excluding the policy fee and the offer is available exclusively through nibAPPLY until 30 September 2025.

 

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