We have recently seen a number of changes with bank life insurers and we now have both BNZ and Westpac life insurance administered by traditional life insurance providers. Meaning that if you have life trauma or disability products from your bank, it's time to have a closer look as it may be that we can improve what you have or reduce your premiums in ways not previously considered.

How did you get here?

We have all had ‘The would you like fries with that approach’. You are standing at the teller at the bank doing your banking and they start asking you a bunch of questions. You are here now; we can do other things for you, nice and easy. Do you have life insurance; can we help you with your mortgage? Can we invest your money or look after your Kiwisaver? Or some other variation on this.

My question is why would you take advice for your insurance or investments standing at a teller at the bank? Would you take advice for chest pains from your local cafe owner? My point is they are chalk and cheese, banking and insurance.

I have mentioned this before; banks are good at looking after your money and giving you ways to spend it. They are not so good about helping you out of debt or giving you insurance advice. This is especially so at the teller level, which is where a lot of bank cover is sold rather than advised.

For example, 'Thanks, Mr. Smith. We've got your banking sorted. Would you like insurance with that?'

You have heard it before, possibly not the best thing for you.

I call it the fries approach

Continuing from the previous blog on breast cancer claims, we are going to get a bit technical and dive much deeper into what today's policy wordings say about cancer definitions.  

We did something similar on heart attack definitions a couple of months ago, though this is significantly longer. I am going do something I have not seen in a blog, add an appendix!

Continuing from our previous post on the primary cancer benefit definitions we cover the early or less severe stages of a cancer claim with these definitions. If you want to read the main article, you can read that here first

Partial or Early Cancer Benefits

This has been an interesting topic of discussion in the last few weeks. Brought about by two clients facing breast cancer.

Checking the stats on the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation website the diagnosis rate of breast cancer in New Zealand has been steadily climbing in the last 20 years. From around 2,000 diagnosed per year to around 3,000 diagnosed per year presently.

This probably isn't surprising given that our population has grown too. What is pleasing to see is the mortality rate is improving relative to the number diagnosed. 

I'm looking for insurance cover, but I do some interesting things;

By interesting things, I'm assuming this is related to your hobbies, activities and occupation. 

Insurance companies do take an interest in what activities you do because sometimes they are risky. Immediate things which come to mind for most people are bungy jumping and parachuting. The list is much longer.

Interesting research out of Australia, yes I know Aussie. However, as our closest neighbour, most research has some value for insight or application in our market too.

What is interesting with this, is the insurance uptake across all products is generally better in Australia, with house car and contents being the most similar to us.

This research was specifically about insurance literacy, most of the time these reports are on investment or financial literacy or subject matter and insurance is treated as a by-line. Which for those relying on it, it is far from a by-line.

Diana’s Clements recent article on heart attack definitions in trauma insurance and the situation of a claimant in Australia, not getting paid for his heart attack, has put the spot light on the definition of a heart attack in trauma insurance here.

Looking into heart attack definitions in the market, from what you can presently buy, the quality level across heart attack definitions is quite surprising.

There has been plenty of contention about Sovereign heart attack definitions over the years. The rating for this would suggest it’s somewhat founded, with a 21% gap between it and the best rated heart attack definition.

As our largest life insurer, Sovereign also has the largest number of trauma policies on their books.

This is an area of health care often mis-understood until you are in the thick of your treatment and you find out things may not be as you expected.

Pharmac is the governments answer to managing health care costs and getting the best deal for New Zealanders health care dollar. The challenge is that health care dollar, which is funded from your taxes, only goes so far.