Group insurer delivers low premiums
NGS Super’s death and total and permanent disability (TPD) product has taken out Money Management’s 2013 Adviser Choice Awards in the inaugural Term and TPD rider product category.
NGS Super chief executive Anthony Rodwell-Ball said insurance inside super, with its tax effectiveness and group premium rates, was one of the superannuation industry’s “best-kept secrets”.
“We manage through group life and scale to negotiate very, very favourable premiums,” he said.
The industry fund, which caters for the independent and non-government schools sector, altered its insurance offering to suit a broader vocational group following the completion of its merger with Uniting Church Super last year.
Members gain an automatic level of cover through its NGS Super offering and have the ability to move up to its Plus option to access cheaper premiums and scale benefits if the member fits within a specific occupational band.
Rodwell-Ball said NGS Super’s insurance options offered extremely good premiums due to the effective pricing of risk for its member demographic through its group insurer.
Taking silver, Unisuper’s Accumulation 1 insurance offering also gained traction among advisers in 2013, while First State Super gained bronze with its Personal Superannuation product.
DEXX&R said the results were not surprising given the methodology used to judge the category winners.
It said industry funds took the top three spots because the methodology relied on the same price weightings for group and individual business while the category gave significant preference to competitive premiums.
Industry funds’ member segmentation and the funds’ effective pricing of risk for specific cohorts (in all three cases the majority of members are in low-risk white collar occupations) also helped them collect higher total scores overall than individual products available inside super.
UniSuper caters for professionals in the university and research sectors, while First State Super has a focus on the NSW public sector and more recently the health sector through its merger with Health Super earlier this year.
However all three industry funds utilise different group insurers. NGS Super has opted for CommInsure, UniSuper is serviced by Hannover Life and First State Super looks to TAL to provide their members with insurance cover.
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