A new lease of life for ING

ING Australia has emerged as the new leader in the life insurance industry, taking out the overall Risk Company of the Year category of the Money Management/Dexx&r Adviser Choice Risk Awards.

Following closely behind it in silver place is former Risk Company of the Year Tower Australia, which received gold in 2007 and 2006.

Receiving bronze in this year’s awards is MLC, which, like ING, was not part of the top three in this category in 2007.

Attributing its win to its strategy of encouraging and acting on adviser feedback, ING also received gold in both the Term and TPD, and Trauma categories.

ING Life Risk’s newly appointed head of retail product, marketing and reinsurance, Gerard Kerr, said the insurer placed a high value on adviser feedback, which was supprted by having a strong presence in every capital city.

Kerr said it was adviser feedback that had led to a series of upgrades across ING’s insurance product range in the past 12 months, some of which were market leading, such as a 33 per cent reduction in the length of its Product Disclosure Statements.

ING also announced major upgrades to the options available on its OneCare product that extend cover to previously uninsurable risks including high-risk occupations, needle stick injuries and pregnancy complications.

Although it was unable to record a hat trick, silver-place medallist Tower expressed similar sentiment to ING when it came to responding to adviser feedback.

“Partnering with advisers is very much our primary means of distribution, so we have worked hard with advisers to improve our offer and to keep out there as one of the leaders in the market,” Tower managing director Jim Minto said.

Tower’s new package of products and processes, Accelerate, has been one of the major outcomes of this strategy, as well as the 17 product enhancements the insurer has made to its Tower Protection Policy in the last 12 months.

MLC’s medal-winning strategy has focused on the need for all Australians to have in place long-term insurance, which has been driven by its campaign of encouraging advisers to consider level premiums as opposed to stepped premiums.

MLC recently announced reductions to its level premium insurance rates across its Personal Protection Portfolio and Life Cover Super designed to make insurance more affordable in the long-term.