Top Life Insurance Company of the Year
Last updated on March 3rd, 2022
The year 2020 isn’t a good year for businesses overall, regardless of which industry you belong to. In Australia, business development in the insurance industry experienced a challenging year as well. When comparing 12-month scores on a per-month basis, it was shown that insurance companies had slightly lower results. However, amidst all the trials in the life insurance sector, a few companies rose to the challenge and provided even better products and services to financial advisers, as well as the clients they support. The Association of Financial Advisers recently announced their 2020 Top Life Insurance Company of the Year award. For the fourth year in a row, it went to the same high-yield life insurance company.
TAL Grabs the Win For the 4th Year in a Row
(Un)surprisingly, the Life Company of the Year award went to TAL Insurance — the same company that has kept winning this award for the past three years. AIA Australia, MLC Life Insurance, and NEOS Life were the runners-up in this category.
The Association of Financial Advisers President Michael Nowak applauded these businesses after announcing the top life companies. According to Mr Nowak, together with the winners of the other categories, the top life companies “stepped up in an extraordinarily difficult environment.”
It is no secret that the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in the business sector overall, but this is especially hard-hitting to companies that deal with health provision and life insurance. With so much uncertainty given the quick rise and spread of the virus, it’s difficult to reassess the situation from an insurance standpoint without knowing all the facts about the virus and how it affects its victims.
Mr Nowak continues, “These companies have risen to meet the challenges presented by the current pandemic and continue to deliver superior products and services to financial advisers and their clients."
To get an accurate and objective result, The Association of Financial Advisers worked with Plan for Life to provide the necessary benchmarking research and gather data for the life insurance, investment bond products, and annuity product awards.
Life Insurance Companies Proved Their Worth in 2020
While TAL’s Accelerated Protection Life Insurance Plan got the award for the best term life/total permanent disability category, AIA Australia and MLC also won a few categories under health insurance.
MLC’s Insurance Critical Illness Plus Plan bagged the award for best trauma/critical illness insurance product. The Service Quality Awards, meanwhile, went to AIA Australia.
Mr Rael Solomon, Plan for Life’s regional managing director, commended the companies above, stating that they proved their worth throughout the trying times last 2020. He mentions, “Whilst 2020 was a difficult year for the life insurance market, life insurers have continued doing their best to support advisers through increased training efforts, maintained high levels of service for both advisers and customers and kept a high profile through advertising their products.”
Other categories like Underwriting Award and BDM/ Business Support Award were researched and benchmarked with the help of the Beddoes Institute. In the categories they catered, they announced that OnePath won the Claims Award while NEOS won the Underwriting Award and BDM/Business Support Award.
Rebecca Sheils, Director at Beddoes Institute, announced that in 2020, new insurers have improved in the business development and underwriting categories. She mentions that although the Underwriting performance dropped overall, the top-performing insurers still went above and beyond in providing an incredible standard of service.
Continuing the Australian Insurance Standard
The awards that The Association of Financial Advisers gave out to select insurance businesses show that even at difficult times, the Australian standard when it comes to insurance products and services is still to be commended. Here’s to hoping that the standard continues to be sustained (or even improved) for the years to come.
