Asteron Life
Changes to Loss of Earnings and Loss of Earnings Plus effective 8 August are now live on Quotemonster. There were premium changes to LOE and LOE+ and a change in bundled discounts. On Quotemonster the Extras Package has been removed and replaced with Optional Benefits which now includes income top-up package, immediate assist package and a specific injury support. To add or remove the Optional Benefits you will need to go to the ‘Settings’ screen and make your selection.
There were also a number of changes made to LOE and LOE+. The following items had enhancements:
- Rehabilitation and retraining support
- Claiming while on LWOP
- Claiming while unemployed
- Funeral assistance
- Family Assist
These new optional items were also added:
- Income top-up package
- Immediate assist package
- Specific injury support
As a result of these changes scoring variations have been made to the Quality Product Research database. A key point is a reduction in the weighting for TPD benefits which were scored at about a 4% incidence. This reflected the balance of working life risk for a male life from age 40. It has now been weighted to match the policy duration used in the claim model (which is eight years) resulting in a reduction by about two-thirds.
Fidelity Life
Fidelity life has made a significant cut to first-year premiums for income protection. Against a backdrop of other providers increasing income protection prices the move is aggressive. We are still waiting for confirmation of the subsequent year pricing.
Advicemonster tools
It is likely that we will soon incorporate projections of future prices into Quotemonster as a part of the head-to-head functionality (only available to research subscribers).
The needs analysis beta has already given us some valuable feedback and a package of updates has been put through in the last few days. If you haven’t tried the needs analysis feature (also only available to research subscribers) then please do take a look. If you are keen on getting some training on needs analysis please contact us in the office as we are running some workshops focusing on this area over the next few weeks in Auckland and Wellington.