News and Insights

17 July 2024

Welcome to the latest edition of Adviser News

We recently concluded our Advisory Board series for 2024 and I would like to thank those advisers who participated. We held boards in the five main centres and sought feedback across product, underwriting, digital enhancements and claims. The Advisory Boards are a great way for us to gather adviser insights, guidance and recommendations to ensure we remain on the right track. This feedback is highly valued and helps us prioritise what our teams are working on to support you and your clients.

Claims Concierge 

We aspire to continually deliver a claims service that adds genuine value to both you and our customers.  
 
While your assistance and involvement at claims time does not change, this new service allows us to work more efficiently with you and our customers during the claims process, providing improvements in response time and importantly reducing the burden of paper-based tasks and friction filled processes. You can read more about Claims Concierge here.

We don’t just cover, we care

Last year, Zurich and OnePath Life supported 12,252 customers and paid over $1.53 billion in life insurance claims. You can have a look at the claims we paid, the top causes of claims and hear from our claims staff tell their stories on the customers they have supported by visiting our dedicated digital claims pages > Zurich, OnePath. 

The Cost of Care: Volume 2

I hope you have had the opportunity to read our latest research paper, ‘The Cost of Care: Volume 2’.  

In the first week of this important paper being released, we reached over one million Australians through coverage in the media, raising awareness of our health and financial ecosystem and providing context for broader education on why life insurance is so important.   
 
Additional to this paper, we have designed an interactive tool ‘Someone Like You’, to help segment the research for a one-to-one client conversation based on your clients’ specific age and gender profile. 
 
You can download a copy of the paper and request access to the ‘Someone Like You’ tool through _ZONE Education by visiting zurich.com.au/costofcare.

The Adviser Portal

We continue to make a substantial effort to improve the quoting capabilities in The Adviser Portal, including the ability to submit alteration quotes direct from the portal moments after generating a quote.  
 
With these enhancements, it’s now much faster for you to submit an alteration via the portal, saving as much as a day on average when comparing against other methods such as phone or email.  You can see the latest enhancements on inforce quoting capabilities here.

You can also view our policy alterations video on _ZONE Education here – Policy Alteration quotes in the Adviser Portal.

As always, thank you for your support, and all the best for the second half of the year.  

Cheers,

Kieran Forde
Head of Adviser Channel
Zurich Australia

21 May 2024

A note from Kieran Forde

A seamless experience with the claims concierge

We recently launched the Claims Concierge for Zurich and OnePath income protection customers. This team of experienced Claims Consultants offer a more streamlined service, with a new approach to the way we collect information at claim time.

The Claims Concierge manages customer expectations from the outset and where a customer is identified as needing extra support with the claim lodgement, they can benefit from Zurich’s partnership with CaseWorks. Through this service, the customer is connected with a healthcare professional who will attend a joint appointment with the customer and their health specialist or general practitioner.

Additionally, vulnerable customers can access rehabilitation and support services like the Cancer Support Program and Financial and Grief Counselling. These services are offered as part of the initial phone call, without waiting on the paperwork. 

While the Claims Concierge is still in its infancy, we are already seeing some great customer outcomes. Later in the year, we plan to roll this service out to Trauma claimants. If you would like to know more about the Claims Concierge, please speak to your Business Development Manager.

The Adviser Portal keeps getting better

True to our word, we continue to enhance The Adviser Portal to bring simplicity and efficiency to you and your practice staff. In our most recent technology release, we added even more quoting scenarios to the portal and launched the first iteration of Portfolio Insights.

Through Portfolio Insights, you can delve into the detail of your Zurich and OnePath book of business by age, gender, occupation class, smoking status and more. Throughout the year we plan to bring you even further insights, giving you a comprehensive view of your portfolio. Visit The Adviser Portal > Insights

Our next drop of technology enhancements is coming in June, stay tuned for more. 

OneCare PDS update

We recently delivered two updates to the OneCare and OneCare Super policy T&Cs in our Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). While these changes are not materially adverse or change the intent, we have included a summary of these on our website for you to view > Product updates.

Commitment to continuous improvement

We are always looking for ways to continuously improve the products and services we offer to you and your clients. Over the next few months we will be busy working on a product update and further digital enhancements to the adviser and customer portals.

As always, thank you for your ongoing partnership. If you need support, please reach out to your Business Development Manager.

Cheers,

Kieran Forde
Head of Adviser Channel
Zurich Australia

4 March 2024

Welcome note from Kieran Forde

Following a number of years of declining life insurance new business, 2023 was a turning point. The market experienced growth of approximately 8% in 2023 and 2024 has started positively. There is an air of optimism returning to the market. The talk from regulators is all about improving access to financial advice, and advice practices are positioned well for growth and are in good shape financially.

At Zurich we have been busy delivering improvements across our business and have a number of exciting developments in the pipeline to improve our services to you. In the second half of 2023 we reorganised ourselves and put all functions that impact our adviser relationships together, our BDM's, underwriters, case managers, product and pricing teams and service teams have been brought together under one team. It's a privilege to be leading our adviser business and we are working hard to provide better local relationship based services to you.

Our adviser team mission is to be Australia's leading insurer that advisers trust, recommend and find the easiest to do business with. We are working hard to achieve our mission and hope that this resonates with you. Thanks again for your support in 2023 and we look forward to strengthening our partnership with you in 2024.

TPD Roundtables

Recently we sent out important information regarding the challenges and future opportunities we are experiencing with TPD insurance and some of the initiatives we have in place to address it. Please visit zurich.com.au/tpdupdate where you will be able to access all key information and support tools.

The Adviser Portal

We're continuing to invest in our technology to improve the way you do business with us. With our most recent enhancement to both the adviser and customer portals, OnePath claims information is now available to view online. Giving you the ability to instantly view any current claim on any of your clients’ policies. To find out the latest enhancements to The Adviser Portal, including new quoting scenarios, you can visit zurich.com.au/adviserportal or onepath.com.au/adviserportal.

Zone Education

We're committed to keeping you informed about industry trends and developments through our online education and training resources on Zone Education. Our team of experts will be working hard to provide you with a comprehensive education program for 2024. For the most up-to-date CPD sessions, visit zoneeducation.com.au.

Delivering Better Financial Outcomes

The Federal Government's Delivering Better Financial Outcomes package is bringing legislative reform in 2024. We fully support the intent and direction of this proposed legislation. Our aim is to make insurance advice more affordable and accessible, and we'll continue to advocate for advisers and customers.

Melbourne Football Club

I’m excited to let you know that we have extended our partnership with Melbourne Football Club for a further three years. This partnership is helping bring much needed awareness for the products and services we offer the community all across Australia, and we are really proud to be the team behind the team! You can watch our partnership announcement video here.

I'm optimistic about the opportunities ahead and I'm looking forward to partnering with you again. 

Cheers,

Kieran Forde
Chief Distribution Officer

21 December 2023

December's note from Kieran Forde

Thank you very much for your support during 2023 and for everything you have done to ensure your customers remain protected despite difficult cost of living pressures.

We hope the technology improvements we have made this year have made it easier for you to deliver advice more efficiently. We’ve seen a big increase in usage across both our customer and adviser portals and lots of positive feedback. We will continue to develop our range of services we provide via our portals and have an exciting roadmap of enhancements to be delivered in 2024. 

We also know how important the support you get directly from our teams is and we’ll be expanding our local presence across our Sales, Underwriting and Case Management teams to ensure you have the right contacts in place to provide the new business support you need.

Finally, it was a welcome development to see the recent announcement by the Assistant Treasurer on a plan to expand access to quality and affordable advice. There is obviously lots of detail still to come but there is potential for these reforms to create significant benefits for consumers and the broader economy. I also think these proposed changes create some interesting opportunities for advisers and advice groups to grow their pipeline of customers and staff. We look forward to working collaboratively with the Government and the Parliament to help implement these important reforms. Read more about Zurich welcomes advice reforms.

As we close off 2023, we wish you and your families and friends a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to the great things we can achieve together in 2024.

Cheers,  

Kieran Forde
Chief Distribution Officer

9 November 2023

November's note from Kieran Forde

We have recently re-organised our business into three core customer segments being Retail, Group & General Insurance. Within our Retail segment we have pulled together the key parts of our business that impact the service we provide to our adviser partners. This adviser facing team includes; Sales, Underwriting, Case Management, Product and Pricing, and our Adviser Service teams, it also includes technology focused resources to help us continually improve our services to you. Claims is an enterprise-wide capability (sitting across the above three customer segments) and remains closely connected to our new adviser team.  

To enable these changes to occur, there have also been changes to some individual roles internally: 

• Nathan Taggart has moved into our business wide strategy team, this is a great career move for Nathan, he will bring a strong market focus to the strategy function, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with him. Our four Regional Managers; Vilma Attanasio (WA & SA), Matt Backman (VIC), Reece Foster (QLD) & Rob McNeill (NSW) remain unchanged and lead our local BDM teams.  
• Tim Kane moves into a newly created role and leads our underwriting teams nationally. Tim is supported by four regional underwriting leaders; Leigh O’Malley (WA & SA), Elizabeth Burke (VIC), Karl Bird (QLD) & Alice Swain (NSW). Peter Tilocca our previous Chief Underwriting Officer is leaving the business, we’d like to thank Peter for his significant contribution to the success of the company and we wish him well.  
• Jayne Edwards moves into a newly created role and leads our new business Case Management teams nationally. Jayne is supported by three regional case management leaders; Harry Bohl (WA & SA & Victoria), Tamara Santjohanser (QLD) and Catherine Pestana (NSW). 

Our Sales, Underwriting & Case Management teams are working closely together to align adviser panels and ensure you all have the right contacts in place locally to provide the new business support you need. 

• Tim Atley takes on an expanded role, in addition to being responsible for our key licensee relationships, Tim’s team is also in charge of our in-market activity and adviser education programme delivered via our ZONE platform.  
• Tina Beilby is caretaking our Adviser Care teams who provide phone-based service to advisers (including Service One), looking after any manual quote calculations and all commission related work.  
• Ioana Logan (Zurich) & KV Ho (OnePath) are overseeing the work of our product, proposition and pricing teams do. 

The team of people above are committed to our Adviser team mission, which is “To be Australia’s leading insurer, that advisers trust, recommend and find the easiest to do business with”. You will ultimately be the judge of how we progress towards this mission. As always, we are keen to hear your feedback and are committed to keep improving what we do and how we do it.  

The Adviser Portal, keeps getting better 

Our adviser portal is better than ever before. With new and improved digital capabilities and a range of self-service functionality, we are helping make your business more efficient. 
 
You can get up to date with all of our recent enhancements by visiting our dedicated portal pages > zurich.com.au/adviserportal I onepath.com.au/adviserportal. 

See the latest enhancements on inforce quoting capabilities here.

Unfair Contract Terms: Continually removing ambiguity and ensuring greater transparency in our policies 

It is our responsibility to ensure you and our customers have complete confidence that their policy will protect them, as it is trusted to, at difficult times. With this in mind we have made further efforts to remove ambiguity and ensure greater transparency in relation to certain policy terms and definitions.  
 
Some of the changes we have implemented include the removal of, or updated wording to remove subjectivity and provide better clarity, making it easier to understand the terms of your cover with us.  
 
While the changes have been made to provide better transparency to our customers, if they are inadvertently disadvantaged by any of the changes, the previous wording in the PDS will apply.  
 
The changes will be effective for policies issued from 9 November 2023. 
 
The updated terms can be found on our website by clicking the below links:  

•  Zurich Active and Wealth Protection 
• OneCare

Do you need to take any action?  

No action is required, however if you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact your BDM.  

 I look forward to catching up with at the FAAA Congress in a few weeks. And as always, thank you for your continued support. 

Cheers,  

Kieran Forde
Chief Distribution Officer

3 October 2023

Welcome to October’s adviser news.  

The expertise and support you are providing to customers at the moment is incredibly valuable. As we face into the rising cost of living, we want to make sure you have the right tools and resources to improve customers' total wellbeing and help reduce financial stress and worry, which we know can lead to health issues.  

To help you help your customers, we are making LiveWell and Loving Life, more accessible to our existing Zurich and OnePath customers. You can read more about this important offering here. 

Our Adviser Guides are now digital 

I am also very pleased to announce that our Adviser Guides are now available online through The Adviser Portal. Not only are they more accessible, but they have also been redesigned to be more useable and searchable for you and your practice. You can now easily find information in just a few clicks. 

You can find the digital adviser guides through  The Adviser Portal > Tools & Resources or by clicking the following links Zurich Adviser Guide, OneCare Adviser Guide. 

We're committed to continuously improving our platforms and becoming easier to do business with. Don’t forget to visit zurich.com.au/adviserportal and onepath.com.au/adviserportal to get up to date with all of our recent enhancements.    

Target Market Determinations  

Ensuring our financial products are designed for, and distributed to, the right people remains paramount. We have recently made some updates to the Target Market Determinations (TMDs) for our retail insurance products, OneCare, Wealth Protection and Active: 

• We’ve structured the document in a clearer way making it easier to understand; 

• We’ve described when cover may and may not be suitable to help better define the target market; 

• We’ve articulated the value of the product to consumers, and provided additional information on eligibility, premium structures and key limitations of the product; 

• We’ve updated the conditions and restrictions on distribution, to provide distributors with clearer and parameters. 

Distributors are required to consider the TMDs for products they distribute. You can view a copy of our TMD’s by visiting zurich.com.au/tmd or onepath.com.au/tmd. If you have any questions regarding the updates to the TMDs, please reach out to your Business Development Manager.  

Thank you for your support and all the hard work you are doing for our mutual customers. Enjoy spring and the warmer weather to come.  

Cheers,  

Kieran Forde
Chief Distribution Officer

11 August 2023

Welcome to the August edition of Adviser News

Amidst the ongoing challenge of rising living costs, I want to extend a big thank you for your continued dedication to your clients. Ensuring they feel protected and supported is paramount. I encourage you to reach out if you would like help with any affordability tools, resources, and guidance you may need. 
 
With so much focus and stress now on Australian expenditure, demand for advice is stronger than ever. Zurich remains optimistic about the outlook for advice and supports the Government in working towards improving the quality, accessibility and affordability of advice. We are committed to innovating and investing in our digital capabilities to improve the way you interact with insurance providers 

To this point, I would like to reinforce the strength of our adviser portal and our ongoing improvements to its functionality, enhancing your efficiency. You can see the latest enhancements here > The Adviser Portal. 
 
In this edition of Zurich and OnePath Adviser News you can read about;   

• Our commitment to claims - hear from our OnePath customers and partners 

• Zurich Wealth Protection - watch our video explaining the benefits it can provide to your clients  

• Our Impact by numbers - have a look at the positive impact Zurich is making  

• Health and wellbeing - How to empower your business and your health 

• Investments – market update  

• The Adviser Portal - latest Change of Ownership enhancements 

• EOFY – Information for you and your clients 

• Zurich Evolve - Making life better for everyone 

As always, thank you for your continued partnership, I hope you enjoy this month's edition.  
 
Thanks,

Kieran Forde
Chief Distribution Officer