AMP enhances insurance offerings
AMP has extended its Flexible Lifetime range, introduced enhanced product features and updated commission options in the risk and insurance areas.
Previously, the Flexible Lifetime range included a core offering of investment, superannuation and retirement solutions as well as limited insurance selections such as term cover and income protection.
AMP’s risk insurance director, Anne Fitzgerald, said the new addition, known as ‘Flexible Lifetime - Protection’, provided a more comprehensive offering under one umbrella.
“Financial planners providing broad advice want simple solutions within one product to meet client needs of varying complexity,” she said.
Death cover, total and permanent disablement cover, trauma cover, income protection and business overheads insurances were included in the new range, Fitzgerald said, adding all insurances were underwritten by AMP and presented in a style designed to complement the Flexible Lifetime range.
Fitzgerald said insurance product features had also been improved with the introduction of an ‘indemnity’ option for income protection allowing a 15 per cent premium reduction, and enhancements to income protection and trauma insurance such as bed care being paid from day one rather than day four, and the removal of conditions that trauma protection would only be paid after 14 days without life support.
“We have also made it easier for planners to write protection business with AMP,” she said.
Fitzgerald said more flexible and competitive commission structures had been introduced along with dial-down functionality designed to give financial planners operating fee-for-service models the option to forgo upfront and trail commissions in favour of reduced premiums for their clients.
Other simplifications Fitzgerald outlined included the incorporation of retail risk protection product disclosure statements into one document with a single application form incorporating super and non-super cover, and upgrades to the company’s all-in-one protection illustration software.
AUTHOR
Zoe Fielding
Recommended for you
Policy and advocacy specialist Benjamin Marshan has left the Council of Australian Life Insurers after less than a year, having joined in March from the Financial Planning Association of Australia.
The declining volume of risk advisers meant KPMG has found a rising lapse rate for insurance policies arranged by independent financial advisers, particularly in the TPD and death cover space.
The Life Insurance Code of Practice has transferred from the Financial Services Council to the Council of Australian Life Insurers.
The firm has announced it will no longer be writing new life insurance policies in the retail advised and corporate group insurance channels, citing a declining market and risk adviser numbers.
