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Blog lite, as I am buried in work

In the next few days, I shall have completed the quarterly life report - subscribers should be receiving copies around the end of this week, After I have been through the checking of drafts stage. I shall look forward to being in contact with you about meeting up to talk through the report. Meanwhile, I have to get back to it...

UK: AIG Buys Ellipse from Munich Re

In another move that underlines AIG's intentions, both to grow and to compete in the digital future, they have bought a UK group insurer famed for automation. Link. More details on Ellipse at this link.

Test and measure, then repeat, faster

One of the keys to taking good photos, is to start by taking a lot of them, and then critically examining which worked best. Practice helps a lot, but plenty of it, and varied, makes it works even better. Because one of the keys to quality is that it is rare - dig up plenty of ore and you simply have a better chance of finding gold. Not indiscriminately, of course, but, don't use discrimination as an excuse for inaction. Don't let perfect become the enemy of obtaining a perfectly good learning experience.

Some of the most successful people I know are failures, have failed, and will fail again. Fear of failure is normal, being too wrapped up in avoiding failure, or even worse, denying it, will usually deny you success as well. This article explores the value of failure. Link. Try some more, Godin has an excellent summary of the secret to great ideas here.

More people are killed by suicide than war or terrorism put together

I was shocked, even, perhaps, amazed to read the statement that more people are killed by suicide than war and terrorism combined. Noticed in this post: and verified by these data:

Surprising to some is that the number who die from suicide is more than double that of homicide at a global level. In fact, the number of deaths from suicides is higher than the number of deaths from all forms of violence – including homicide, terrorism, conflict, and executions – globally and across many countries across the world. You can see this relationship here. As Yuval Noah Harari notes in his TED Dialogue: "Statistically you are your own worst enemy. At least, of all the people in the world, you are most likely to be killed by yourself".

Courtesy of Max Roser, at Our World in Data.

What should I know before changing an insurance policy?

The team at Life-Info have written this article about what clients need to be aware of before switching over their insurance policy. 

Hannover Re on medical developments

Hannover Re has this fascinating article on a grab-bag of new treatments and techniques that are offering hope to millions.  Link.

Income protection: early rehabilitation interventions make a difference

This article from Australia is mainly about the legal limits on provision of health-care funding peculiar to that market. But included in it is some evidence that to be effective rehabilitation benefits need to be offered early. Link.

"Based on this research, Cadence also tested how allowing life insurers to fund rehabilitation treatments would affect the time it took to return to work and found that early intervention by life insurers could reduce return to work times from 18 to 13 weeks."

The reason why it is interesting is that, clearly, for the interventions to reduce return to work times to 13 weeks, the interventions must be deployed before 13 weeks. Yet many insurers make rehabilitation benefits dependent on a claim being paid. With the most common wait period now being 8 weeks, some may not even contemplate a rehab benefit until then. Whereas Asteron Life has championed the idea of early intervention by removing the requirement for the claimant under an income protection policy to qualify for a total disability benefit before a rehabilitation benefit can be claimed. They are keen on being involved as soon as possible after an event that could give rise to a claim. That speaks to two things: that early intervention is ideal, and that they are confident enough in choosing between viable early interventions, and those that would merely add cost.

nib Changes to Premiums

From 1 July nib will be adding a $5.75 per month policy fee to policies, they will also introduce a multi-life premium discount of 2.5%. Below is a table of changes by product.

Click here to read more. 

Could your Fitbit "make you uninsurable"?

The New Zealand Herald has this piece with the rather dreadful heading: "Your Fitbit could make you uninsurable in the future". To which the answer is obviously, no it cannot. To literally make you uninsurable, it would have to limit your life-expectancy to the point that you cannot be insured. I am pretty sure that is not what the Herald means. To judge by the article, they appear to mean that the data could reveal something about you, which could make you uninsurable. But even this is ridiculous. A Fitbit isn't like a genetic test, which could suddenly turn a vague suspicion (otherwise why did you take the test) into confirmation of something serious.

Fitbits measure personal activity, and a bit more if you want them to: heart rate and weight are the other two most common measurements. But the author of the headline, at least, perhaps doesn't appreciate that even quite seriously out of shape people can get life insurance at ordinary rates, it has to be really bad to not get cover at all. So much so, that it isn't your Fitbit data that is going to push you over the edge, it will be as simple as your height and weight. Perhaps there are some people who will prefer to blame their Fitbits, but that's just a slightly more modern version of the denial that reluctant dieters have practiced for decades: blaming the scales. Apart from the headline, the article is quite good.

 

Asteron Life Appoints new Executive Manager, Life Distribution

Graham Hill has been appointed to the role of Executive Manager, Life Distribution. Congratulations to Graham on his appointment.

While necessary, it is no longer enough to have processes in place…

While necessary, it is no longer enough to have processes in place to identify and deal with problems - such as monitor for and apply a management plan when a problem is identified. Instead, to obtain a license, it is now necessary to be able to state and demonstrate how one is actively working good processes and monitoring to ensure that there are no problems, and then regularly report and record that fact at the appropriate level within the entity.

That’s why so much compliance work is focused on recognizing conflicts, creating appropriate processes, and then setting up controls and monitoring. Good governance is more than effective management, but it entirely supports and facilitates effective management.

Business, by definition, is not a solo activity. Governance, more so. I don’t think effective governance can possibly be performed by one person either. It’s essence is checks and balances, requiring a perspective bigger than any one individual. If you’re scared of letting go of all the control you have as ‘the boss’ you need good governance more than most - and it will be harder for you to achieve it. But here’s the key, if you’ve ever been frustrated at your ability to get your business to change in the way you want, good news: good governance is exactly the tool you need to use.

Open Letter to Fair Go on Insurance and Advisers

Adviser Bruce Cortesi has written this open letter to Fair Go who recently aired a piece about a declined claim due to non-disclosure. He is critical of the programme - which appeared to exclude any sensible discussion of why the applicant failed to disclose that they had sleep apnea. He is also critical about their subsequent handling of questions and comments on the programme on their facebook page. He makes many good points - so well worth a read.

Sovereign sharpens Level Life rates

Sovereign have announced some changes to Level Life rates for 'to Age 65' and 'to Age 80' Level Life rates, starting today. It was a bit short notice, as the details we given to us on Friday, but the updated rates will be live on Quotemonster tomorrow. Subscribers to Chatswood's life premium comparison database can expect to see an updated database in the next few days.

Code feedback piles up

Investment News NZ has written that the financial adviser code ‘concept’ proposal has attracted more than double the number of submissions racked up by the draft legislation underpinning it. Click here to read more. It will be good to take a look through the submissions and see what major themes emerge. Even better if some early discussion of those themes is possible - perhaps led by an update to the CWG blog.

The Secret to Learning New Skills Twice as Fast

According to this article changing up your routine when practicing a skill or task will result in quicker learning. New research says you could even half the time it takes to acquire a new skill just by practicing a slightly modified version of it. If that sounds oddly disconnected to current issues, re-frame it this way. How do you approach, say, changing how you talk about your business or your role in the business? When was the last time you practiced, recording your elevator pitch, and playing it back to see how it sounds? Did you get feedback on your last presentation? How did you change your practice after that? Choose a different task and try the approach of making small changes to that too. Hat tip to my son who drew this to my attention after hearing me practice the piano, effectively, the same way every day for several days... it is genuinely humbling when you are schooled by your kids, and they are right.

Men's Health Week

From the 11th - 17th of June is Men's Health Week in New Zealand. Accuro have created a health survey for men and are offering free Men's Health Check's at participating pharmacies around the country. Click here to take the quiz and to find out more. 

In case you missed it: the link to the RBNZ comments on commission

RBNZ is looking into the conduct and culture in the banking and insurance industries and has made this statement: “Life insurance commissions are particularly high, which inevitably flows through into higher premiums.” The Bank also states that with possible technology advancements in the future there could be a 'profound impact on the insurance sector.' Click here to read more. 

There are definitely efficiency questions to be asked about life insurance in this country. It is always unwise to single out any one channel - as other distribution channels are similar costs. So commission alone, while part of the premium picture, is insufficient to explain the pricing of insurance as a whole.

Preventable Deaths

New Zealand has a high rate of suicide deaths, and it is worse than it was. What have we made significantly worse? Once our rate was similar to the UK's. Then the UK learned something and managed to reduce the rate, while our rate of suicide rose substantially. Recently it has fallen a bit - but not back to historic levels, and is a lot worse than the United States, and the UK. Here's an age-adjusted comparison with selected countries. I've included Japan to balance the view: showing that other modern countries may also struggle with this difficult problem.

You can read more about the subject by going to the subject page at Our World In Data - link here.

Fidelity Life Product Enhancements

Last month Fidelity made a number of enhancements to their product range after listening to feedback from advisers. The policy documents have been made more consistent across the benefits using the same definitions and benefit names where applicable making it easier for clients to understand. 

According to Fidelity Life here are their 6 key upgrades:

 Here is a brochure outlining more of the upgrades in detail.  Download Life Upgraded Summary for Advisers

Kepa appoints Brendon Neal as Chief Executive Officer

Congratulations to Brendon Neal on his appointment as CEO of Kepa.