MLC takes top prize for second year

Having a broad and balanced proposition across a variety of products with marketing-leading features has seen MLC take out the top prize at the Money Management/DEXX&R 2016 Adviser Choice Risk Awards for the second year in a row.

National Australia Bank's wealth management arm was rewarded for performing well across a number of different products and aspects of the business, which was reflected in the fact that the firm won an additional four gold awards across different categories.

Chief customer officer, retail advised insurance, Melissa Heyhoe, said she was proud of the fact that the firm had prioritised affordability and accessibility by reducing prices on life a nd total and permanent disability (TPD) by up to 15 per cent for clients aged 40 to 45 and beyond.

"We removed policy fees from our products which improved the affordability for everyone, particularly those with a smaller premium size where the policy fee would be a larger component," she said.

"We also offer discounts on income protection where customers have multiple policies with us."

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Heyhoe also said MLC was the only life insurer in Australia to offer clients access to Best Doctors, which was a global network of medical specialists where customers and their families could access second opinions and treatment options. The firm had extended that to include parents and parents-in-law of customers.

The firm also prioritised accessibility by improving functionality so customers could choose how they wished to pay premiums, which included rollovers from any superannuation account.

"Pleasingly over the last year, we've increased our market share for new business substantially from 6.4 per cent to 10.6 per cent," Heyhoe said.

"And the number of active advisers supporting us has almost doubled over that period. We're certainly getting the attraction and the attention in the market."

Coming a close second was BT, whose passion and commitment to customers were the drivers for its success.

The firm attributed its silver win to embarking on a customer-centric design process six years ago, with the aim of making its products and customer services as transparent, simple, and accessible as possible.

To achieve this, national manager, life insurance products, Scott Moffitt, said the firm launched Protection Plans in 2011 to the open financial adviser market.

"This decision enabled our insurance solutions to be sold as standalone products as part of our leading platform offer, or flexi-linked inside and outside of superannuation," he said.

"Customers can structure their insurance to suit their needs and protect themselves from the financial effects of injury, illness, permanent disability and death throughout their life stages."

For bronze winner, TAL, the award was reassurance that it was on the right path for its customers and partners.

General manager individual life, Gavin Teichner, said: "Much of this comes down to our anticipation of implementing LIF [life insurance famework] reforms and our ongoing participation in the development of the Code of Practice".

Teichner said 2016 had been an exciting year as TAL had launched a new direct-to-consumer product called TAL Lifetime Protection through its website, and it had also reached a milestone of paying over $1 billion in claims to customers and their families.

Teichner added it was important to implement LIF and the Life Insurance Code of Practice despite the impact it would have on the way the firm interacted with customers directly.

Risk Company of the Year 2016

Gold — MLC

Silver — BT

Bronze — TAL

JUDGING THE ADVISER CHOICE RISK AWARDS

The Money Management/DEXX&R Adviser Choice Risk Awards, now in its thirteenth year, are based on an assessment of each product's benefits, features, definitions and premiums.

A panel of experienced risk insurance advisers who have built practices specialising in the provision of life risk insurance advice were contacted during September 2016 and invited to complete a survey providing their feedback on:

• The relative importance of the features included in Term, Trauma, Total and Permanent Disability, Disability Income, and Business Overheads insurance products;
• The relative importance of the definitions for core and supplementary conditions and events; and
• The weighting they believe should be applied between features and benefits, definitions and price (premiums) in each product category.

The adviser responses are averaged and combined with the previous year's weightings. The weightings are then applied to each product's features, benefits and definitions to provide a total weighted score for the product. The weighting applied to the total score for features and benefits and for definitions is based on the importance that each represent when recommending products based on adviser survey feedback.

The total features, benefits and definitions score for each product is then combined with the product's premium score. The combined features, benefits, definitions and premium score determines the category winners.

The award for Life Risk Company of the Year is determined by summing the scores for the highest scoring product for each company in each product category.

The weighting applied to each product category reflects the relative size of new premium in each category.