Bumper Times
2010 is shaping up as a busy year of insurance activity with more than one in two advisers in this year’s CoreData Risk Study anticipating an increase in the amount of risk they write – with one in five of the more than 800 participants expecting to boost activity by more than 20%.
Interestingly, as in 2008, groups such as CommInsure, MLC and ING, which dominate in terms of market penetration and business flows are not the leaders when it comes to service levels.
Asteron has been crowned the CoreData 2009 Risk Company of the Year after performing consistently across 11 key areas of service delivery covered in the study.
Tower has been awarded the runner-up gong, ahead of Aviva, with both groups Highly Commended. Zurich and AIA were fourth and fifth and both Commended.
Groups were assessed across a range of categories including: new business – submissions; new business – underwriting; overall end-to-end new business processing; communications; claims; product offer; commissions; business development and support; education and support and image and reputation.
They were also rated on more than 60 individual service metrics by advisers who write business with them.
There was an increase in the proportion of risk specialists involved in this year’s study when compared to participation rates in 2008.
Three in five (60.0%) were generalist financial planners (non-principals) compared to two in three (66.6%) in 2008.
One in five (20.6%) classified themselves as either risk advisers or risk adviser practice principals, up from 11.0% in 2008.
The research covered all the major life companies including AIA, AMP, Asteron, Aviva, AXA, CommInsure, ING, Macquarie, MLC, Tower and Zurich.
Major findings:
- More than half of respondents (51.4%) expect to increase business levels with their main provider, with one in five (20.8%) expecting to boost activity by more than 20%
- Two in five (38.1%) predict business levels will remain the same
- One third of advisers who use CommInsure and Zurich as their primary risk provider anticipate increasing their level of business with these firms by more than 20% in the year ahead
- One in five writers to Asteron, Aviva, MLC and Tower expect to boost their business quantities with these firms by more than 20%. For Aviva, however, the same proportion of its main users point to an expected decrease
- 11% of those who use Aviva as their main risk insurance company expect to decrease business flows by more than 20% with the group, while 9% anticipate a decline in the business written with the group of between 11% and 20% in the coming year
- Half of primary writers to Tower believe their business levels will remain the same as this year, as does 45.5% of AXA, 42.9% of AMP and 41.7% of Macquarie main users
- AIA, followed by MLC and Tower are the three most common eApps being used by respondents
- There are five/six commonly used eApps, with no single provider dominating in a huge way
- AIA, MLC, Tower followed by ING, AXA and Aviva collectively are the most popular eApps.
- Coin and Iress IQM+ are the dominant software tools used by advisers irrespective of which risk insurance providers they write business to
Risk analysis sourced from the 2009 CoreData-brandmanagement Risk Study
