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.
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
Nick Russell has been appointed as National Sales Manager, Home Loans. Russell has extensive experience working alongside home loan advisers.
More news:
AIA Trauma Buy-back Enhancement
nib's Amanda Savill unpacks changes in how advisers support their clients
Government announces changes to KiwiSaver
The FSC welcomes decision to increase default KiwiSaver contribution rate
Financial Advice NZ webinar 'Data-Informed Decisions for Private Health Insurance' 28 May
FSC Investment and KiwiSaver Committee meeting on 3 June
Michelle Russell and Tim Horgan step into permanent leadership roles at ANZ
Southern Cross Health Trust funds starter pack for nursing students
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.
More news:
Southern Cross Health Trust to fund salaries of nursing positions at City Missions
Kiwi advisers believe AI could help improve advice delivery
Pharmac to fund or widen access to three treatments, including for skin cancer, from 1 June 2025
Bigger not necessarily best when it comes to KiwiSaver
Big banks, with their brand recognition and big budgets, have long been an almost default choice for people deciding who to invest their KiwiSaver funds with. That looks like it’s starting to change.
Consumer NZ has taken a look at how KiwiSaver is going. Big banks, with their brand recognition and big budgets, have long been an almost default choice for people deciding who to invest their KiwiSaver funds with. That looks like it’s starting to change. Encouragingly, 29% of new members chose their KiwiSaver scheme independently, and 8% consulted a financial adviser about what their best option would be, though 14% were automatically allocated a default scheme. There is still some reluctance to change providers, with 12% of people feeling it’s too much hassle to change provider, 8% having thought about switching but haven’t gotten around to it and 5% not knowing where to start.
With more than 3.3 million members and more than $111 billion of total funds under management, it’s worth putting in a little effort to see which fund best suits your situation.
While banks in general are big spenders on advertising, ANZ outspends them all. Yet ANZ’s KiwiSaver returns are underwhelming, coming in last (12th) for its management of conservative KiwiSaver funds, 6th (out of 12) for moderate funds, second to last (out of 15) for balanced funds and 10th (out of 12) for growth funds, according to Morningstar’s December 2024 results. Yet ANZ holds the largest share of the KiwiSaver market, with $21.9 billion funds under management.
As of 2021, ANZ and ASB are no longer default KiwiSaver providers, leaving BT Funds (Westpac) and BNZ as the only default big bank providers for new members. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the various banks’ KiwiSaver market share over the next decade or two.
In good news, Consumers NZ’s annual survey on KiwiSaver satisfaction highlights growing satisfaction, with February 2025 results showing 82% were satisfied with their provider.
And what do people most want from their KiwiSaver provider? Good returns with responsible investments came out top (42%), followed by the best returns (37%) and investing responsibly, even if it comes with slightly lower returns (14%)
More news:
Southern Cross Health Society using Patient Feedback to celebrate surgeons
Shaun Phelan is retiring from his role as National Manager of MAS Business Advisory Services
AML Summit 2025 is on 8 - 9 May in Auckland and livestreamed
Chubb Life appoints new CFO
Chubb Life has appointed Jaco Grobbelaar as its chief financial officer.
Chubb Life has appointed Jaco Grobbelaar as its chief financial officer. Grobbelaar has more than 25 years of experience in the insurance and financial services sectors. Grobbelaar was most recently at Partners Life, where he led the finance function team across a range of activities to help strengthen organisational resilience and growth.
Chubb Life chief executive Gail Costa said
"Jaco has a strong track record of optimising financial planning and reporting processes, driving efficiency and successfully leading teams through change. I'm really looking forward to having Jaco on board and have every confidence that his expertise, experience and leadership will further strengthen our senior leadership team."
More news:
mySolutions roadshow 'Persistence: it's your Superpower' in May
Fidelity Life publish February turnaround times
Partners Life webinar 'Quote for Alteration Changes' 3 April
nib delay launch of Ultimate Life & Living Insurance suite
Southern Cross Healthcare looking for a People and Culture Business Partner
The FMA is looking for a Head of Deposit Taking
Partners Life’s new training module ‘Fair Treatment of Customers’
Partners Life have introduced a new training module ‘Fair treatment of Customers’, to help advisers be better prepared for the new Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI) regulations coming into effect on 31 March.
Partners Life have introduced a new training module ‘Fair treatment of Customers’, to help advisers be better prepared for the new Conduct of Financial Institutions (CoFI) regulations coming into effect on 31 March. The module is worth approximately 0.5 hours of CPD and is available on the Partners Life Academy.
Partners Life developed two different new eLearn modules on the fair treatment of customers – one for staff and one for independent financial advisers. The staff version focuses on how the fair conduct principle applies to daily work and interactions with clients and advisers. The adviser version includes more information on the shared responsibility for customers that is held between Partners Life as the product provider and the adviser who has a deeper understanding of the client’s personal situation and financial circumstances. Partners Life appreciate that advisers are familiar with the new CoFI legislation, however, they wanted to share their expectations in a format that would be easy to read and included a short quiz to test their understanding.
By the end of March, a customer-friendly version of their fair conduct programme and information on how Partners Life apply the fair conduct principle will be available on their website.
More news:
Southern Cross Health Insurance funds pilot for access to The Prostate Clinic
Momentum Life offer customers 20% off online wills in partnership with Public Trust
FMA ad campaign educating consumers about Fair Conduct Programme to launch soon
Experts advocate raising KiwiSaver minimum contributions to 4% from both employees and employers
Monsters in March off to a great start
We’ve kicked off our Monsters in March event series, thanks to the attendees, sponsors and speakers for making it happen.
We’ve kicked off our Monsters in March event series, holding the first session in Remuera on 18 March and the second session in Christchurch on 20 March. Thanks to the 150+ advisers that showed up to hear about personal insurance, business insurance or KiwiSaver advice. And thank you to all of our sponsors and speakers for making it happen.
Here’s a few photos from the events so far.
We’ll be holding a last on the North Shore in Auckland on 25 March – hope to see you there!
More news:
Fidelity Life will host a workshop at FANZ conference
mySolutions Member Benefits day is on 19 March
mySolutions webinar 'Artificial Intelligence: is it for you?' 26 March
Southern Cross Health Insurance appoint Russell Simpson Chief of Healthcare Partnerships
Registrations open for the Million Dollar Round Table’s Annual Meeting in Miami in June
Advisers originate about 70% of Kiwibank’s mortgages by volume
What’s the biggest health claim paid for a procedure?
The health insurance industry has been experiencing a time of rising medical costs, where both volume of claims and inflation have been increasing. We’ve taken a closer look at individual claims values that a few insurers have released recently.
The health insurance industry has been experiencing a time of rising medical costs, where both volume of claims and inflation have been increasing. We’ve taken a closer look at individual claims values that a few insurers have released recently. As you can see from the data below, the costs of individual claims can be astronomical.
nib regularly publish their top 5 health claims by month. RiskinfoNZ has an article collating historical nib’s top health claims by month here.
nib’s top health claims for January 2025
Treatment Cost Gender Age
Spinal surgery $101,000 Male 16
Cardiac surgery $85,000 Male 46
Cardiac surgery $56,000 Male 70
Cardiac surgery $54,000 Female 70
Digestive surgery $53,000 Male 72
nib’s top health claims for December 2024
Treatment Cost Gender Age
Cardiac surgery $103,000 Male 72
Cancer surgery $102,000 Male 77
Cardiac surgery $93,000 Male 80
Cardiac surgery $88,000 Male 76
Spinal surgery $87,000 Male 48
But these do not top the charts of what we are currently aware. Southern Cross’s most expensive surgical claims were $256,165 for a spinal fusion procedure and $127,191 for a breast reconstruction.
While Partners Life don’t release a similar monthly overview of their top claims, their ‘The story behind our claims’ slideshow highlights their largest single payouts since 2011. The most expensive claims paid out were a whopping $1.6 million+ for Total and Permanent Disability or Income cover; $2.9million +for Life cover; $3.2million + for Trauma cover and $982,000+ for Private Medical Cover.
While the majority of claims won’t cost anywhere near as much, what used to be ample caps of some older medical values don’t seem so rosy in light of recent inflation and surging claims costs. Yet we haven’t seen any insurers coming out and indexing claims caps. We think that’s wrong, and we’ll offer a score boost to the first insurer who offers indexed caps.
What types of claims have you heard of and how did they go? We would love to hear more from you, especially if you are a Quotemonster subscriber, through our adviser claims experience tool (check the side menu when you are next logged in).
More news:
mySolutions webinar 'What got you here, won't get you there' 19 March
Chubb Life NZ appoints new Head of Claims
Chubb Life NZ has announced that Reeta Anthony has been appointed as its new Head of Claims, effective immediately.
Chubb Life NZ has announced that Reeta Anthony has been appointed as its new Head of Claims, effective immediately. Anthony will report to Debbie Eyre, Chief Operating Officer, and will be responsible for the strategic delivery of the claims proposition. Anthony has over 25 years of financial services experience and expertise and was most recently Head of Claims at Fidelity Life.
More news:
Kate Jorgensen has been appointed to the Board of Southern Cross Medical Care Society.
ASB's NPAT for the six months to December 2024 was $763 million
Pharmac announces decision to fund medicines for a further five health conditions
New Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society appointed
Chris Black has been appointed Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society (Health Society).
Chris Black has been appointed Chair of Southern Cross Medical Care Society (Health Society). Black joined the Health Society Board in 2021. Black has held a range of leadership positions over the course of his career, including Chief Executive of Farmers Mutual Group, ICNZ President and Commissioner of the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme. He is currently a Trustee of the Southern Cross Health Trust, Chair of the Natural Hazards Commission and Rabobank New Zealand, and a Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation.
Outgoing Chair Murray Jordan retired at the organisation’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) last week.
More news:
Reminder advisors must take note of supervisor guidelines on AML/CFT
Empower Women Networking Events 6 & 11 March
FSC seek feedback on FMA's proposed exemption for Climate Reporting Entities
Surgeons at Southern Cross North Harbour Hospital win research award
The FSC has released its latest Money & You research
The Financial Services Council (FSC) has released their latest research report, Money & You: Managing Risk Through Challenging Times, which explores the attitudes of New Zealanders towards risk management. Some of the key findings are below.
Only 41% of respondents had life insurance, 39% had health/medical insurance, 23% had trauma/critical illness insurance, 18% had total and permanent disability insurance.
For the 12 months to 30 September 2024, FSC industry data showed 1,521,740 health insurance policies and 4,145,287 life insurance products (one person may have more than one policy e.g. life insurance, income protection insurance and total and permanent disability insurance policies).
The majority (66%) who have life and health insurance consider it value for money.
The biggest drivers of taking out life and health insurance policies are peace of mind and worry about financial consequences.
The most common reason given for not having life and health insurance was that insurance is too expensive (74%), followed by being healthy and not seeing the need for it (14%), and not trusting insurance companies (13%).
Cost of living meaning people can no longer afford insurance was the top reason given for no longer having insurance across life, trauma or critical illness, income protection, total and permanent disability and health/medical.
For those without insurance, 64% would consider taking out an insurance policy if they had more money, 25% would take out an insurance policy if their health started declining and 18% would take out an insurance policy if they started a family. There is a gap in understanding of how insurance works, with only 3% of those who would consider taking out an insurance policy if their health started declining knew that they might not be able to get cover for certain health issues or they might face higher premiums because of them.
The majority of health (61%) and life (77%) insurance policies are paid by individuals, with the remainder being partially or fully subsidised by employers.
When it comes to health/medical insurance or life insurance being provided by employers, 54% really want this and a further 35% might possibly want this.
45% of respondents have a poor understanding of the relationship between risk and return.
2,002 online survey responses were collected during March 2024 and were representative of the NZ consumer population in terms of age, gender and income.
It is worth noting that as a low engagement product, life and health insurance is something that respondents find hard to recall accurately. That leads to interesting results - this survey contains a probable over-estimate of the number of people who own health insurance, and a probable under-estimate of the number of people who hold life insurance. But the recalled level of cover is, in itself, interesting. For example, if you think you do not have life, trauma, or income insurance, but in fact you do, you or your estate may fail to claim when you may be eligible to do so.
Readers interested in contrasting these survey results with data on the eligible population should contact us.
More news:
Partners Life has decided to stop using its Customer Outcome Matrix
Southern Cross Health Insurance appoints Grant McIvor as chief digital officer
MAS looking for a Head of Technology Strategy and Architecture