moneyblog

Cancer deaths by type

You can change the country and explore the data sources in the chart above.

New Medical Insurance Premium Comparison

The new medical insurance premium comparison is now on Tableau server and in the Premium Comparison Dropbox. It has the following changes:

• Update to Partners Life rates effective 31/12/18.
• Update to nib rates effective 1/1/19.
• Update to Sovereign policy fee effective 1/1/19
• Update to Accuro rates effective 1/3/19 (but being publicly quoted from 31/1/19)

Holiday reading: The Healthy Country? A History of Life and Health, Alistair Woodward

I've just finished reading "The healthy country? A history of life and death in New Zealand" by Alistair Woodward. I found it well worth the read. The issues of health and death are central to the role of insurers of people. This book is a treasure trove of information about the history of those things, and also provides some interesting ways of looking at the future of them too. There are reminders of the kinds of things that you realise are obvious after you read them, but which one obviously was not continually conscious of. For example, for a public policy  to affect mortality much, its effects must be widespread. Another example, that causes of death at the individual level are not the same as the causes of incidence at the population level. Another: that mortality changes can be large - witness the massive reduction in heart disease-related deaths, and the reduction in lung cancer deaths currently being experienced. It also make awkward reading when faced with evidence of the impact of European colonisation on Maori. Thanks to Jeremy Bernstein for the recommendation. As a consequence of reading this one of my New Years' resolutions is to revise my stats knowledge. Link to Amazon page, summary, and reviews.

Recent reading: Factfulness - Hans Rosling

Hans Rosling liked to ask audiences to estimate the answers to questions. He would ask people to estimate what proportion of the global population is poor, and whether that proportion has been getting better or worse. He would ask audiences to estimate the participation rates of poor children in schools, and whether that was getting better or worse. You can probably guess - most audiences tended to have a very pessimistic view of what has been going on, when in fact many things are getting a lot better. He acknowledged only one area that, at a macro level was worse: the environment. But to stay on target, issues like child mortality, have got a lot better over time. More at this link. The book, Factfulness, was one I read during the year - and is well worth a look. I have an emerging view that the insurance sector needs to rediscover its cause-related alignment of years past. Helping people live longer, healthier, and more productive lives is the place where insurers' and consumers' goals are closely aligned. We should put more focus there.

 

 

Towards Prosperity Research Launch

It was great to see the FSC launch the Towards Prosperity research on Thursday night. Some results might surprise those with a solidly agrarian view of the New Zealand economy:

• Financial services is a large part of our economy – in fact larger than the average for the OECD 28.
• Our contribution isn’t limited to the larger cities, with growth shared throughout the regions as well.

There is lots more to discover, in a pack which is a great grounding for more specific work that you may do for clients, channel managers, or advisers. You can download your copy here: Download Toward Prosperity - Financial Services Council - Research into the Financial Services Sector December 2018

World AIDS Day

This Friday the 30th of November is World Aids Day. 42% of Kiwis say they would feel uncomfortable eating food prepared by someone living with HIV, and 46% of New Zealanders would be uncomfortable letting their child play with a child living with HIV. That's a shame, disease is conquered by science, not by prejudice. The major aim of World AIDS Day for NZAF is to help end HIV stigma. That would help a lot in terms of getting the right things done - people getting tested, taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease, and eventually we can end HIV. The insurance industry has some way to go to help out - we could change policy wordings and cover HIV, as has been shown by AIA's recent changes to their medical policies.

 

Latest Goodreturns Article - four million lives saved

Here is the link to my latest piece on goodreturns. Which is something of a good news story.

The evolution of trust

If trust is the new currency, and my only quibble with that statement is the word 'new', then exploring what trust is, how it works, and why it is so valuable is something worth doing. People do work on this stuff, some of them model it so you can get to grips with the basics experimentally.

Below is a link to an interactive site which allows you to explore what cheating does to a situations in which trust is required - and how variations in behaviour, even the role of simple mistakes, can have an effect on the behaviour present in the whole system. It does take time, about half an hour. I enjoyed working through the site with Matthew, my youngest child, who is twelve, who found it and brought it to my attention. Making predictions and testing them was fun and fast-paced. It helped us to have a conversation about trust, and how we respond when people let us down - and how others perceive us when we let them down. It shows the value of forgiveness in economic systems to allow trust to recover - and demonstrates that is a profitable approach. All in all, it was a valuable contribution to thinking about some of the challenges we have in developing market structures that support good conduct.

Click here to play an interactive game of trust by Nick Case.

How Japan can cope with the 100-year-life society

This article from The Economist discusses the issues facing Japan as they expect over half of Japanese babies are expected to live to 100. The impact of lengthening life can be seen all around us - in 1800 for a person to live to 50 was rare - the world over. Today, it happens more than not, even in some of the poorest places on earth. The changes to our industry appear not to be obvious, but that is probably because the changes are slow. Once, the very idea of trauma insurance, or disability income insurance, were seen as revolutionary. Today our worry is that the allocation of premium to life insurance is a problem - that money should really be spent on living benefits. 

Obesity and cancer

Obesity is a factor in cancer, this article explains how that works - and the changes necessary to reduce risks. My favourite part of the article is where they explains the action of a drug trial:

Prof Lydia Lynch said: "A compound that can block the fat uptake by natural killer cells might help.

"We tried it in the lab and found it allowed them to kill again.

"But arguably a better way would be to lose some weight - because that is healthier for you anyway."

You mean a better diet and more exercise? Dammit, I was hoping for a pill!