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Geoff Annals on conduct obligations

Geoff Annals, CEO of Accuro, the health insurer, has made the clearest statement yet by any insurer on a shared view of responsibility for client outcomes.Illustrated in this quote, by talking about servicing requirements:

“Our remuneration should reflect that. That’s one of the things insurers can be criticised for. If we remunerate without requiring evidence that the service we expect has been delivered, we should be in the gun, too."

or a goodreturns article, at this link.

Previously companies have tended to act in a way which suggested a very clear demarcation between the insurer and the adviser. That view was a split between the client experience between product and service performance (provided by the insurer) and advice (provided by the adviser).

The view is effectively a recognition of the various legal contracts that underpin the commercial arrangements. Clients have a contract with the insurer, the insurer is not involved in the arrangement that the client may or may not have with the adviser. The adviser's role with the insurer is defined in their agency agreement. This split is widely reflected in the split in law, but it is not as clear-cut as it is sometimes represented. Whether insurers like it or not, advisers are their agent when it comes to the point of application. In other respects the boundaries may be blurred as well, such as when an adviser makes a mistake in good faith, and the insurer handles resolution - cancelling contracts from inception and returning monies paid, for example.

The discussion about conduct is drawing some areas previously dealt with by assumptions and expectations into the daylight, and is perhaps demanding that they should be made explicit. Perhaps there should be explicit service obligations. If a significant portion of the client's experience of a product is based on a service the adviser will provide, then maybe the adviser and the insurer should agree what that service looks like.

The potential upside for advisers here is clarity in their centrality of their role to the operation of the product. On the flip side of that, insurers may wish to operate two channels - one where they are happy with transactional introductions, and another where they want a genuine partnership with advisers.

Medical Excess Options on Quotemonster

Here is a table of the excess options available for each health insurer and the ones we use on Quotemonster for Specialist & Tests.

Quality Product Research Update: V105

We have just uploaded QPRV105 onto Quotemonster and have also distributed it to all other subscribers. This version includes the following changes:

1. Momentum Life added for Life
2. AIA Business TPD, Trauma
3. Accuro update to Smartcare and Smartcare+
4. Income Protection review changes
5. All funeral providers updated
6. Review Funeral Cover item

Probably the most significant change is to income protection. You will note a narrowing of the range from the top to the bottom of income protection scores, due to reduction of the incidence rates for a series of secondary cover items. 

Accuro Launches Online Underwriting for Direct

Accuro has announced automated underwriting for their direct health insurance sales using the services of Intelligent Life, best known for developing the underwriting systems of Pinnacle Life. From Accuro's release:

Kiwi Innovation - World First Provides Instant Health Cover for New Zealanders

05 September 2017, Wellington

A Kiwi innovation is delivering instant healthcare cover for individuals, a service not available until now. A New Zealand and world first, the online service has been launched today by Accuro Health Insurance, a New Zealand owned not for profit health insurance provider.

“With waiting times getting longer and tight DHB budgets, it is becoming harder for Kiwis to receive all the essential health care they need, when they need it. That’s where health insurance comes in,” says Geoff Annals, CEO of Accuro.

“Until now, even if it was easy to get a generic instant quote, buying health insurance meant filling in lots of forms and extra questions. Then usually there was a wait for days until you found out what your health insurance policy would actually cover and what it would cost. And until you signed-up your acceptance of the offer you were still not actually covered. Phew!”

“With this new service, called HUGO, anyone can complete a simple guided questionnaire online and in many cases will get an instant, fully underwritten, personalised offer and cover that starts from the moment they click their acceptance,” Geoff Annals says. “That’s not only much quicker and much easier. It also takes away a lot of the worry and uncertainty.”

The key to the service, named HUGO (Health Underwriting Goes live), is a new intelligent underwriting engine. This guides users through a series of simple questions, but ‘under the hood’ is a complex system that only asks the questions needed, saving on pages of form filling, while going into detail where necessary. 

 “This new automated analysis and underwriting system is something previously in the ‘too hard basket’ for health insurance, with many thousands of possible combinations. It is far more complex than life or car insurance, for example,” says Ed Saul, Director at Intelligent Life, the New Zealand company specialising in developing innovative solutions for the life and health insurance industry. “There’s a lot of business intelligence behind delivering such a simple to use system.”

A significant proportion of applicants will be able to access an instant offer and cover for their healthcare insurance. Applications identified by the intelligent underwriting system as possibly requiring extra attention will be sent to an experienced, human underwriter.

“The innovation also allows us to respond faster and better than ever before. And it means our skilled underwriters are freed up to spend more time on to the more complex applications so these applications can also be responded to faster and better while the automated system instantly handles applications that used to clog our underwriters’ in-trays,” adds Geoff Annals.

 

Accuro and Quotemonster Launch new Online Application Process

Accuro has become the first health insurer in the world to offer a fully underwritten product with an entirely online application process. This new process is only available to Accuro’s financial advisers using QuoteMonster. The application form is entirely online and the process delivers Accuro an electronic application that has been pre-underwritten through the platform. The process significantly speeds up the end-to-end application process for financial advisers, which benefits the customer, the financial adviser and Accuro.

It enables an adviser using Quotemonster to offer an end-to-end process from initial scope of engagement, through market research, comparison, and recommendation, to application with the insurer.

 

Stand-alone Medical Policies for Children - UPDATED

Susan Edmunds asked us to investigate which companies will allow stand-alone medical policies for children. We hadn't thought of this use case before, but logically, it is useful. What if the parents are unable to buy health cover - perhaps they are un-insurable, or simply cannot afford it, or this is a case of a child being raised by an elderly grandparent? We checked around: apparently two insurers offer the cover without requiring an adult life to be part of the policy. Accuro and Sovereign. 

UPDATE: nib has been in contact again and they can do standalone medical policies for children too, the policy owner can have no cover - so long as an adult owns the contract, they can be uninsurable, and still buy cover for children. 

Breast Cancer: Temporary/Permanent Tattoos and Prophylactic Treatment

A few months back we posted this article on the blog. We had a number of advisers ask us questions as to which insurers might cover things such as tattoos and prophylactic treatments. Here are the responses we received from the insurers:

Accuro
They do cover permanent nipple tattoos for women after their mastectomies, however it is not mentioned in their policy document. Temporary tattoos would be covered as it would be considered a health related appliance.

AIA
They will cover the cost for temporary and permanent tattooing, but not Prophylactic treatments for breast cancer.

nib
Temporary tattoos not covered. Permanent tattoos would be covered up to the surgical limit. Prophylactic treatments are currently excluded. Cover is available for accessories such as scarves, hats, wigs, and mastectomy bras under Ultimate Health Max only.

Partners Life
Nipple tattooing is covered under the reconstruction benefit. At this stage there is no cover for prophylactic treatment. 

Southern Cross
Temporary nipple tattoos are not covered, but permanent tattoos are. Prophylactic treatment is covered after three years of continuous cover.

Sovereign
Both temporary and permanent nipple tattoos are covered. Prophylactic treatment is not.

It appears that Southern Cross are the only health insurer that will cover prophylactic treatment for BRCA 1 or 2.

Accuro Offers Skin Cancer App to Members

Accuro have partnered with Skin-Vision, a Nethland-based app, which will enable its members to self-check for signs of skin cancer early on using their mobile phone. Click here to read more.

So how does Skin Vision work? You download it in your mobile phone, enter your details to create an account and then follow these three steps: 

Accuro Update - Post Earthquake

From Accuro: 

We appreciate the recent earthquakes and floods may have had a significant impact on your staff and their families, whether they be in Wellington or around the country.  We would like to offer a big thanks to all those who got in touch with us to check on our wellbeing and we thought we would give you all a quick update on Accuro.

On Tuesday afternoon we received the all clear for access to our offices on Boulcott Street, Wellington, and were back in the office Wednesday morning, with all of our staff fit and well. We are currently working hard to catch up on what we missed on Monday and Tuesday and expect to be up to date later today. 

 

Accuro Launches Accuro Connect

Accuro Health Insurance launches Accuro Connect, a new member benefits programme - click here to find out more.