Life and health industries need to work together
The life insurance industry should do more to work with the health industries for better outcomes, experts urge.
Helping the whole well-being of a person, instead of one aspect, is one of the reasons there is a real opportunity to work better with the health industry, ANZ Australia wealth managing director, Alexis George, believes.
"We all know, all the research points to the fact that good work and really good for you — mentally, physically, longevity, etc... So as an industry we need to consider the whole person, and the health industry is doing a better job at the moment," she said at the Financial Services Council's (FSC's) life insurance conference.
Metlife Insurance chief executive, Deanne Stewart, agreed and said workers compensation claims needed to be looked at as a whole.
"If you think about what a customer faces into what they deal with workers comp it's their treating physicians, occupational therapy, us, and health insurers," she said.
"All that is currently completely isolated rather than working in harmony as an ecosystem to really get that person well and back to good health. That I think ends up being exasperating."
Also speaking at the conference, KPMG NSW chairman and head of insurance for Australia, Martin Blake, said there was US$2.6 billion ($3.4 billion) invested into insurance tech companies last year.
"Fifty per cent of that went into health companies. There are clearly opportunities for life companies to partner with some of those companies that are engaging and using those technologies," Blake said.
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