ING upgrades life insurance
ING Australia has launched an upgraded life insurance offering, with more than 60 enhancements across its coverage options and underwriting process.
ING’s OneCare product, which was launched in 2005 and is only available through a financial planner, is also now easier to navigate with improved comparability options within the product, according to ING.
One of the major changes is a new two-tiered definition for disability. While this previously only applied to people who were completely unable to perform one or more work related duties, it now also applies to people who are unable to work a total of 10 or more hours per week.
The change was made with a focus on the self-employed, with a view to helping them recover and return to work more quickly in a phased-in process, according to ING Australia’s head of marketing and retail product — insurance, Gerard Kerr.
A new optional extra allows people who suffer particular trauma events to reclaim 100 per cent of their income rather than the usual 75 per cent for up to two years.
The interim cover is now unlimited and the 90-day qualification process for trauma cover begins when an application is received rather than from the time it is approved. Both of these changes were made because a customer should not be penalised while an insurer is completing the underwriting process, Kerr said.
There is a broader coverage of oil, mining and gas-related occupations following increased research on those occupations, as well as ongoing expansion within the sector, and trauma cover in needle stick cases has been extended to Hepatitis B and C instead of just HIV.
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Policy and advocacy specialist Benjamin Marshan has left the Council of Australian Life Insurers after less than a year, having joined in March from the Financial Planning Association of Australia.
The declining volume of risk advisers meant KPMG has found a rising lapse rate for insurance policies arranged by independent financial advisers, particularly in the TPD and death cover space.
The Life Insurance Code of Practice has transferred from the Financial Services Council to the Council of Australian Life Insurers.
The firm has announced it will no longer be writing new life insurance policies in the retail advised and corporate group insurance channels, citing a declining market and risk adviser numbers.
